Reeva Steenkamp and Oscar Pistorius

Reeva Steenkamp had met with her ex-boyfriend two days before Oscar Pistorius fatally shot her on Valentine’s Day. Warren Lahoud, 27, had dated the 29-year-old model for five years but they kept in touch even after their liaison ended.

As The Mirror reports, Lahoud and Steenkamp went for a coffee two days before she was killed. During their conversation, Lahoud said the Paralympian athlete phoned Reeva every 20 minutes. “I said, ‘‘Is everything ok? I mean he’s phoned twice already, every 20 minutes’. I asked her that question. She said, ‘there’s nothing wrong’,” Lahoud said.

Although Pistorius kept calling her, Lahoud said there was nothing in Reeva’s ways that made him even think there were problems between the two of them. “She didn’t seem unhappy. She always said that she wouldn’t be with anybody who she felt unhappy with,” Mr Lahoud said.

On Monday, a friend of Pistorius told the BBC the double amputee athlete is feeling suicidal. The friend, Make Azzi, made the claim in a documentary called ‘Oscar Pistorius: What Really Happened?’.  

• Mirror

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He has no confidence in his tone of voice and he is almost like someone that is walking around in circles and doesn’t know where he is going. I would say that, just speaking to him, he is a broken man. I would go as far as to say that he could be on the verge of suicide. It really worries me.

Pistorius is accused of murdering his 29-year-old model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in his house in Pretoria, South Africa, on Valentine’s Day. Prosecutors accused him of premeditated murder, which the double amputee strongly denies, and was released on bail on February 22.

In order to cover the growing costs of his legal fights, Pistorius has sold his horses. The trial in the murder case will resume in June.

• BBC

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CAIRO, EGYPT – Egyptian protestors found a new way to protest by doing the Harlem Shake ouside the headquarters of president Mohammed Morsi.

The protestors danced in funny costumes at the beat of the Harlem Shake. While the protest took place the Islamist group shut its office and turned the lights off as protestors were shouting: “Leave!Leave!” to Mohammed Morsi.

Watch the video of the Harlem Shake below:

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Just minutes after the take off the air balloon crashed  to the ground and all tourists died except two. Michael Rennie and the pilot Momen Murad were the only survivors who managed to leap to safety from 10ft in the air.

To read about the other victims: dailymail.co.uk

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Egypt hot air balloon crash kills 19 foreign tourists

LUXOR, Egypt  - At least 19 foreign tourists lost their lives in the city of Luxor when the hot air balloon they were in crashed into a cane field and caught fire. The casualties included French, British, Japanese nationals and nine tourists from Hong Kong, the official said.

As the Associated Press reports, 20 tourists were flying over Luxor in the hot air balloon when it caught fire after its gas canister exploded. The balloon plunged 300 meters from the sky into a sugar cane field outside al-Dhabaa village not far from Luxor.

Bodies of the dead tourists were scattered across the field around the remnants of the balloon. An Associated Press reporter at the crash site counted eight bodies as they were put into body bags and taken away. The security official said all 18 bodies have been recovered.

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They are both represented by the same lawyer Kenny Oldwage, apparently the crash took place in Vanderbijlpark in South Africa just a hour south of Johannesburg. Though the charges were reinstated once the family of the victim said it could have been more of an accident.

This is what Arnold Pistorius, Oscar’s uncle, said: ‘We don’t want to put him under pressure but while we were in the car, that is what he said. The family of Reeva is in his mind all the time and he knows his purpose would be to be part of the family in future.’

This is how Barry Steenkamp, Reeva’s father, replied: ‘We don’t want to put him under pressure but while we were in the car, that is what he said,’ Arnold told eNews Channel Africa. ‘The family of Reeva is in his mind all the time and he knows his purpose would be to be part of the family in future.’

SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk

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Oscar Pistorius 9mm pistol gun by his bed in 2010 magazine photoshoot

A picture that was taken in Oscar Pistorius’ home in 2010 was shown yesterday at the bail hearing trial that is expeted to reach its conclusion today. The snap was taken for a magazine and shows that Pistorius’ used to sleep with a 9mm pistol by his bed.

The gun, which is beside the athlete’s car keys and his watch, isn’t the one the double amputee used to fire the shots that killed is girfriend Reena Steenkamp. 

• The Daily Mail

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Oscar Pistorius arrived at the court building in a police car with a blue blanket covering his head Wednesday as prosecutors prepared to outline in more detail why they believe the double-amputee Olympian murdered his model girlfriend and should be denied bail.

Pistorius said in an affidavit read out by his senior defense lawyer Tuesday that the Valentine’s Day killing of Steenkamp was accidental and that he shot her by mistake in fear of an intruder in his house. In the affidavit, Pistorius wrote:

I fail to understand how I could be charged with murder, let alone premeditated. I had no intention to kill my girlfriend.

But prosecutor Gerrie Nel told the court on the first day of the hearing that the 29-year-old Steenkamp and the world’s most famous Paralympic athlete had a fight the night of her death and that she fled to the toilet before Pistorius shot four times into the locked door of the toilet, hitting her three times and killing her. The prosecutor then added that the shooting was clear case of premeditated murder. 

In the 11-page court affidavit, the Paralympic champion said he did not have his prosthetic legs on and felt “extremely vulnerable” in the predawn hours of Feb. 14 when he thought that Steenkamp was an intruder in a toilet cubicle inside his bathroom.

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State prosecutor  said Pistorius put on his prosthesis, walked seven metres and fired three shots through a locked bathroom door at girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. The double amputee athlete could spend life in prison if found guilty.

A line of dozens of people waited to go in that public entrance. Around 100 people filled the court room, that has a capacity of about 60, where Pistorius’ father sat in the front row and his sister just behind him. The windows of the courtroom were covered from outside so that photographs could not be taken.

Top model Reena Steenkamp was shot four times on Valentine’s Day at Pistorius’ apartment in Pretoria. Pistorius, 26, is believed to have killed with a 9mm revolver.

According to report in The Mirror, Pistorius, who may have been high on steroids the night of the murder, fought with Reena over a text message the model had received from her former boyfriend, South African rugby player Francois Hougaard. Pistorius is also believed to have crushed Reena’s skull with a cricket bat.

Police officers found the bloodied bat by the side of Pistorius’ bed and it is thought he may have used it to break down the bathroom door Steenkamp had locked herself inside. Police will conduct tests on the athlete’s blood to check traces of any foreign substance are found. Pistorius is thought to have been high on steroids when he killed his model girlfriend.

An anonymous source told City Press: “The suspicion is that the first shot, in the bedroom, hit her in the hip. She then ran and locked herself in the toilet. She was doubled over because of the pain. He fired three more shots. She probably covered her head, which is why the bullet also went through her hand.”

• Gawker
• The Mirror

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A post mortem on Reeva Steenkamp revealed that the 30-year-old had a crushed skull. It is believed that Pistorius may have used the bat to force his way inside the bathrooom where his girlfriend had locked herself in. The bloodied bat was found by police officers during a search of Pistorius’ home on Friday.

Reeva Steenkamp was killed onValentine’s Day and Pistorius is the sole person believed to be responsible for the murder. Prosecutors have already charged him with one count of murder but are seeking to upgrade the charge to premeditated murder.

If found guilty, Pistroius could spend the rest of his life in prison.

• Metro

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Reeva Steenkamp, 30, was shot dead ealry Friday morning in Pistorius’ house. She was shot four times and prosecutors have charged the 26-year-old paralympic athlete with murder. She was discovered in a pool of blood before dawn Thursday by police called to Pistorius’ upscale home in a gated community in Pretoria.

“After consulting with legal representatives, we deeply regret the allegation of premeditated murder,” Arnold Pistorius said. “We have no doubt there is no substance to the allegation and that the state’s own case, including its own forensic evidence, strongly refutes any possibility of a premeditated murder.”

Pistorius remains held at a police station pending a bail hearing Tuesday. Police have already said they’ll oppose Pistorius being released before trial. A premeditated murder charge also makes it more difficult for his defense team to get bail.

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• Metro

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Pistorius, who will appear in court today, allegedly shot his girlfriend early Thursday morning with a 9 mm pistol. Steenkamp was shot four times in Pistoris’ house on the outskirts of Pretoria. A police spokeswoman, Brigadier Denise Beukes, said the incidents included “allegations of a domestic nature.” ”I’m not going to elaborate on it, but there have been incidents,” Beukes said. She said Pistorius was home at the time of Steenkamp’s death and “there is no other suspect involved.”

What sparked the shooting remained unclear, but police said they had received calls in the past about domestic altercations at the home of the 26-year-old athlete, who has spoken publicly about his love of firearms. Pistorius made history in the London Games when he became the first double-amputee track athlete to compete in the Olympics. He didn’t win a medal but did make the semifinals of the 400 meters and became an international star.

Linked to a number of women by the South African media, Pistorius and Steenkamp were first seen together publicly in November. She was named one of the world’s 100 Sexiest Women for two years running by the men’s magazine FHM. 

• YouTube

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The Athlete might have killed his girlfriend with the handgun he kept next to his bed, because he thought she could be a burglar, probably due to a Valentine’s Day surprise went wrong. Though the accident has been considered murder but the police, also because other incidents of  “domestic nature” at his address have been reported in the past.

Pistorius will spend the night in jail awaiting the tomorrow 7 am hearing. Yesterday his girlfriend wrote on Twitter: ‘What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow??? #getexcited #ValentinesDay’

This is what Oscar‘s father said today: ‘I don’t know nothing. It will be extremely obnoxious and rude to speculate. I don’t know the facts. If anyone makes a statement, it will have to be Oscar. He’s sad at the moment. We all pray for guidance and strength for Oscar and the lady’s parents.’

WATCH Pistorius leaving police station after murder charge:

WATCH Police reporting “previous domestic incidents” in Pistorius home:

SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk

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The snaps were taken by an amateur photographer originally from South Africa.  He told the Daily Mail he had driven only 500 meters when he saw the two big male lions rubbing themselves in buffalo faeces during rush-hour traffic.

“They went into a ridiculous pose, with their read ends up in the air and their faces down,” said Gareth Jones. The lions are from Nairobi National Park which opened in 1946.

• The Daily Mail

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According to researcher Vincent Francigny: “The density of the pyramids is huge…Because it lasted for hundreds of years they built more, more, more pyramids and after centuries they started to fill all the spaces that were still available in the necropolis.” The biggest pyramid found is 22 feet wide whereas the smalles is 30 inches long.

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Biti said they need $104 million to organise this year’s election.

The country’s economy dipped at the start of the 21st century when President Robert Mugabe forced white men to return their farms to the state. The move affected the confidence of international investors in Zimbabwe paralysing its economy and “scaring off tourists.” Zimbabwe’s economy is expected to grow 5.0 percent this year.

• Star Africa

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The unrest was sparked by a court conviction and death sentence for 21 defendants involved in a mass soccer riot in the city’s main stadium on Feb. 1, 2012 that left 74 dead. Most of those sentenced to death were local soccer fans from Port Said, deepening a sense of persecution that Port Said’s residents have felt since the stadium disaster, the worst soccer violence ever in Egypt.

At least another 11 died on Friday elsewhere in the country during rallies marking the second anniversary of the anti-Mubarak uprising. Protesters used the occasion to renounce Morsi and his Islamic fundamentalist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which emerged as the country’s most dominant political force after Mubarak’s ouster.

Morsi, in office since June, also invited the nation’s political forces to a dialogue starting Monday to resolve the country’s latest crisis. A statement issued later by his office said that among those invited were the country’s top reform leader, Nobel peace Laureate Mohammed ElBaradei, former Arab League chief Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabahi, a leftist politician who finished third in last year’s presidential race.

There were also clashes Sunday in Cairo and several cities in the Nile Delta region, including the industrial city of Mahallah. Egypt’s current crisis is the second to hit the country since November, when Morsi issued decrees, since rescinded, that gave him nearly unlimited powers and placed him above any oversight, including by the judiciary.

The latest eruption of political violence has deepened the malaise as Morsi struggles to get a grip on enormous social and economic problems and the increasingly dangerous fault lines that divide this nation of 85 million. In an ominous sign, a one-time jihadist group on Sunday blamed the secular opposition for the violence and

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Two policemen were shot and relatives of those who were sentenced to death tried to free them. The violence broke up during the match between Al-Masry and Al-Ahly that was played last February.

Watch the video of the riots:

SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk

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The attack on the plant run by Algerian state company Sonatrach along with BP and Statoil lasted four days and was carried out by a terrorist group called the Masked Brigade linked to Al-Qaida. 

In a statement, the Masked Brigade warned of more such attacks against any country backing France’s military intervention in neighboring Mali, where the French are trying to stop an advance by Islamic extremists.

“We stress to our Muslim brothers the necessity to stay away from all the Western companies and complexes for their own safety, and especially the French ones,” the statement said. Algeria said after Saturday’s assault by government forces that at least 32 extremists and 23 hostages were killed. “Three Britons were killed and another three were feared dead. On Monday, Philippine Foreign Affairs officials said six Filipinos were among the hostages killed. An American and French workers are also among the victims. On Saturday, Algeria’s interior ministry said 32 Islamists and 23 hostages were killed during the four day siege.

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Speaking on Sunday, Algeria’s chief government spokesman said “numerous” new bodies were found at the site run by the Algerian state oil company Sonatrach. Many of the bodies are said to be badly disfigured. 

The spokesman for the Algerian government said the Islamists linked to Al-Qaida were from six countries and were armed to cause maximum destruction. They stormed the plant at Ain Amenas, which Sonatrach runs along with Statoil and BP, held all the workers hostage for four days before Algeria’s special forces were ordered to storm the complex. The military forces stormed the area on Thursday and Saturday.

A report explains the reasons that led the Algerian government to launch its final attack on Saturday. 

The military launched its Saturday assault to prevent a fire started by the extremists from engulfing the complex and blowing it up, the report added. A total of 685 Algerian and 107 foreigner workers were freed over the course of the four-day standoff, the ministry statement said, adding that the group of militants that attacked the remote Saharan natural gas complex consisted of 32 men of various nationalities, including three Algerians and explosives experts.

…

The military also said it confiscated heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, missiles and grenades attached to suicide belts. Sonatrach, the Algerian state oil company running the Ain Amenas site along with BP and Norway’s Statoil, said the entire refinery had been mined with explosives, and that the process of clearing it out is now under way.

The two attacks were backed by French president François Hollande arguing it was the “most adapted response to the crisis”. Hollande, whose coutry is also fighting Al-Qaida forces in Mali, was quoted as saying that negotiating with terrorists was out of question after the rebels “shamefully murdered” the hostages.  U.S. President Barack Obama said that his country was ready to assist Algeria and said that the attack is “another reminder of the threat posed by Al-Qaida and other violent extremist groups in North Africa”. 

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed that three Britons were killed in the siege. Three others are believed dead. Cameron also said that 22 Britons survived the attack and have been flown back to Britain. “Now, of course, people will ask questions about the Algerian reponse to these events, but I would just say that the responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched a vicious and cowardly attack,” Cameron said.

• YouTube

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French authorities contend that Mali and its neighbors in West Africa, Europe and especially France are threatened by three radical organizations, including an al-Qaida affiliate, that control northern Mali and are looking to extend their grip to the crucial south and the capital of Bamako to set up a terror state. French authorities acknowledged Sunday that the militants have turned out to be better-armed and equipped than France had initially thought.

Many issues are at stake and the world is watching with deep concern how France will move next. French authorities may not decided to get directly involved in the Mali’s fight against terrorism. French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said: “We need to get rid of this terrorism that threatens to put at risk the security of Mali and the security of our country and of Europe.”

The French president led the long effort for passage of the U.N. resolution to come to Mali’s aid. African soldiers were to back up Mali’s weak army after training from the West, and once an acceptable military plan was in place. The radicals’ sudden two-column advance toward the south last week and a direct plea for help from Mali was Hollande’s call to faster action.

Hollande repeatedly promised his countrymen there would be no French boots on the ground. But by Sunday, hundreds of French forces were involved in a military operation in Mali, and Rafale fighter jets had bombed training camps and other installations near Gao, one of three cities held by the militants. A helicopter pilot was killed in the first 24 hours of the action that began Friday.

As CNN reports, a U.N. Security Council meeting will be held on Monday to discuss the conflict in Mali. The United Kingdom and the United States have supported France’s decision to act and may send troops to fight the insurgents controlling north Mali.

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Alber Saber, 27, is an Egyptian copt who was accused by his neighbors of posting online extracts from the movie that caused outrage in the Muslim world.

As Alarabiya.net reports, the court found Saber guilty of running anti-Islam and anti-Christianity Facebook pages and uploading the videos on to the pages. The ruling can be appealed if Saber pays 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($160).

The movie ‘Innocence of Muslims‘, which was made in California, enraged most of the Muslim world for depicting Prophet Mohammed as a womanizer and a child molester. U.S. embassies around the world were stormed as a consquence of the movie.

• Al Arabiya

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Sudanese officials in based in the Darfur region said they captured a vulture that was spying for Israel. As The Telegraph reports, the bird was caught with a GPS and filming equipment wrapped around its leg. Tags with “Israel Nature Service” and “Hebrew University” were written on it.

The Telegraph reports:

Israeli officials have acknowledged that the bird, which can fly up to 375 miles a day, had been tagged with Israeli equipment but insisted it was being used to study migration patterns. Ohad Hazofe, an ecologist with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, told the website, Ynet, that it was one of 100 vultures fitted in October with a GPS system equipped to take distance and altitude readings but not surveillance images.

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Panic on board the commercial carrier began when passengers realized the venomous reptile was “slithering under the seats,” CNN reports.

The plane made an emergency landing in an Egyptian resort town on the Red Sea and where the snakebit man refused medical treatment. The snake is an Egyptian cobra and its venom can kill a person in 15 minutes. The Jordanian man refused to spend a day under observation in a hospital saying the wound was superficial.

• CNN

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•  Mirror

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The girl “passed away after she was taken to hospital,” said city spokeswoman Kylie Hatton. The temporary scaffolding came down before the concert and the band was told of the girl’s death after the concert. The band said they “were advised that several people were injured as a result of the collapse of an advertising tower erected by Lucozade in the parking area outside the venue.”

• BBC

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The scheme ran from the late 1980s to 2005 and it was aimed at fixing the prices of petrol, diesel and illuminating kerosene. The commision calims that the companies involved in the price fixing scandal divided or allocated “markets by deciding not to enter, or compete for, certain geographic markets or customer groupings.”

• Fin24

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A South African teacher was fined $160 for taking 19 kids on a school trip to a local bar in her small Renault Clio. According to The Sun, teacher Melanie Minnie was pulled over by the cops and found six children in the car’s boot, three on the front seat and 10 in the back. The teacher told the police, who were contacted by a shopper at the mall where the kids spent the day out, she had already taken “a group of 12 children in her car” earlier in the day.

• The Sun
• Jalopnik

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Just to take further precaution the bit of beach from Muizenberg to Monwabisi has been closed, which is roughly 15 metres. It has not been easy to remove the carcass from the beach due to its weight that could have been up to 47 tonnes.

This is what Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, spokesman for Cape Town’s disaster risk management centre said: ‘A decision was taken to begin the recovery operation immediately because of the increase of shark activity off beaches along the False Bay coastline.’

Samples from the carcass have been taken to decide what its death was caused by, it’s thought it could have died from a illness and the shark attack was after its death.

SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk

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The AP reports that a bomb detonated in a beer garden in a busy neighborhood on Thursday. The bomb detonated at about 8 p.m. and authorities declined to comment who might be behind the attack.

On Friday, a bomb went off in the same area killing a woman and wounding her daughter.  The region has been plagued with several attacks by Islamist sect Boko Haram. They carry out attacks in an attempt to have Islamist law implemented in Nigeria.

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Bikyamasr.com reports:

The Salafist – ultra-conservative – preacher claimed that under Islam when a girl begins to ovulate she is ready for marriage. He added during a television debate on Dream TV last Tuesday that “marriage of a girl would not be a supplement for education,” but added that it “was better” to marry a girl young “than falling into sin with customary marriage.”

The preacher also claimed that girls as young as 14 be given the right to marry. “It is permissible for the girl at the age of 9 or 10 to marry,” Yassir Barhami said during the debate. The cleric gave his own interpretation of the Qur’an that was promptly rejected by a former member of the Constituent Assembly. Manal al-Taibi resigned from her post accusing the Constituent’s Assembly of overusing the Islamic law in ‘the drafting process.’

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The Washington Post reports:

The intelligence picture assembled so far indicates that militants had been preparing an assault on the U.S. compound in Benghazi for weeks but were so disorganized that, after the battle started, they had to send fighters to retrieve heavier weapons.

U.S. intelligence officials said they think the attack was not timed to coincide with the Sept. 11, 2001, anniversary. Instead, the officials said, the assault was set in motion after protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo as part of a protest of an amateur anti-Islamic YouTube video.

It was initially said that the attack was a “pre-planned act of terrorism” but played down amid fears that it might have affected president Obama’s role just a few months before the presidential elections. Still, it was Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to brand the attack an ‘act of terrorism.’

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A spokewoman for the group said other actions will be taken in the following days if the country’s president Faure Gnassingbe doesn’t pay attention to the request. Gnassingbe won the country’s national elections in 2005 and 2010. He is the son of Gnassingbe Eyadema who ruled the country for 38 years until his death in 2005.

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The thief, a middle-aged man, was traced by police investigators when he began using the dead man’s phone. When police officers nabbed him, the thief was already showing some Ebola symptoms and “sought medication at the hospital.”

Ebola is one of the world’s most dangerous viruses and people who contract it “tend to die bloody and painful deaths,” said Dr. Dan Kyamanywa at the Kibaale District Health Officer.

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The AP reports:

The country’s council of ministers declared a national day of mourning. Born on May 8, 1955, Meles became president in 1991 after helping to oust Mengistu Haile Mariam’s Communist military junta, which was responsible for hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian deaths. Meles became prime minister in 1995, a position that is both the head of the federal government and armed forces. The U.S. has long viewed Meles as a strong security partner and has given hundreds of millions of dollars in aid over the years. U.S. military drones that patrol East Africa, especially over Somalia, are stationed in Ethiopia.

Meles won Ethiopia’s national elections also in 2005 and 201o. Political opponents accused him of rigging both elections and demonstrations protesting the results were smothered in violence. In 2010 he won the national elections with 99 percent of the vote.

The post Ethiopia: Premier Meles Zenawi dies from infection at 57 appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

The AP reports:

The police opened up with a water cannon first, then used stun grenades and tear gas to try and break up the crowd, Montsho said. Suddenly, a group of miners rushed through the underbrush and tear gas at a line of police officers. Officers immediately opened fire, with miners falling to the ground. Dozens of shots were fired by police armed with automatic rifles and pistols. Images broadcast by private television station e.tv carried the sound of a barrage of automatic gunfire that ended with police officers shouting: “Cease fire!” By that time, bodies were lying in the dust, some pouring blood.

The violence reminded people of the 60s and 70s rampant anti-apartheid violence white police officers used to exert on black people. But in this instance the officers who opened fire on the mine protesters were mainly black. It is not known what ignited the violence. President Jacob Zuma said “he was shocked and dismayed at this senseless violence.”

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From The Daily Mail:

The classes, being carried out at a Islamic Boarding School, were being taught by a member of the Al Qaeda inspired Somali terrorist group Al Shabaab. The teacher claimed that the children were in chains because they missing classes. Most of the children’s parents were unaware they were there. The raid was one of a number of operations sanctioned by the government in recent months and led to the arrest of 200 people.

Al Shabaab is producing young suicide bombers thanks to a fundraising program whose aim is to create an ‘Islamic Emirate of Somalia.’ The plan is inspired by hate preacher Anwar Al-Awlaki who was the mastermind of deadly terrorist attacks before being killed in a drone strike last year.

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According to the BBC, it is not clear who is responsible for the attack because the area hit by the violence is further south than where Islamist group Boko Haram is based. Boko Haram is an Islamic terrorist group that wants to instate the Islamic law in the country.

Many wounded in the attack have been rushed to hospital.

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Marshale was allegedly killed by two Islamists belonging to the group al-Shabaab, reports The Guardian. The comedian, who was much appreciated in Somalia, was forced to go into hiding in Somaliland a year ago when the group threatened to kill him.

A presenter at Kulmiye radio, Yusuf Keynan, told The Daily Mail : ’He had not done anything wrong to anybody, as far as we are concerned, but they shot him in the head and shoulders. This is a black day for the entire entertainment industry, he was a leader in Somali comedy and everybody liked his performances.’

The killers have not been caught.

Somalia is slowly trying to recover from years of civil war and a new constitution was approved last year. Somalis ahsn’t had a national government since 1991.

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The young man and woman were forced into a 1.5meter deep hole with their heads protruding. The Islamists then and started throwing big stones at them “until they were dead” an official who spoke on condition of anonymity told the New York Times.

The stoning lasted 15 minutes and it was the most brutal act of violence since the local movement Ansar Dine, or Defenders of the Faith, took control of northern Mali in January.

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They forced him to have sex with each one of them but Mr Onoja suffered a heart attack and died while pleasing his fifth wife. The heart attack claimed Onoja’s life forcing his wives to run away and hide in a nearby forest.  Two of them have already been arrested and charged with ” rape to death”.

SOURCE: dailypost.com.ng

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The South African Weather Service said below freezing temperatures of between -3 degrees Celsius (26.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and -9 degrees Celsius and record rainfall were reported in some districts over the weekend. In a country where snowy winter weather is unusual, several main highways were blocked and dozens of travelers were stranded.

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The 11-storey building in the poor Alexandria neighborhood of al-Gomrouk collapsed onto three adjacent buildings, reducing much of the structures to rubble. All the dead and wounded lived in the three smaller buildings. Building collapses are not uncommon in Egypt, where shoddy construction is widespread in shantytowns, poor city neighborhoods and rural areas. With real estate at a premium in big cities like Alexandria and Cairo, developers seeking bigger profits frequently violate planning permits and exceed the number of stories allowed.

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He said some women wailed at the scene of the explosion, desperately looking for their relatives. The location of some of the bodies suggested that they were trying to run away when fire consumed them, Morris added. “How can people who have enough to eat scoop oil that belongs to someone else?” said Morris. “It is poverty.” The fuel truck was trying to avoid a head-on collision with buses when it swerved into the ditch Thursday morning, said Rivers State police spokesman Ben Ugwuegbulam. It then overturned, leaving its fuel to spill and people immediately swarmed to the scene to collect some of it. Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for the West African country’s emergency management agency, said the 95 people were killed in the explosion that ensued. It was not immediately clear what had caused the fire that left the truck burned to ashes.

Despite decades as an oil producing region, the majority of those living in the Niger Delta remain desperately poor and mostly without access to proper medical care, education or work. Anger over the situation on several occasions has driven young people to attack foreign oil firms based there and steal fuel from pipelines. The crude that flows from the Niger Delta is the lifeblood of Nigeria’s economy. The OPEC member now pumps out about 2.4 million barrels of oil a day, making it Africa’s biggest producer. Production dropped drastically during the militant attacks that targeted pipelines and saw foreign workers kidnapped. A 2009 government-sponsored amnesty program saw many fighters lay down their arms and the violence largely stop.

The truck accident took place near Okogbe town about 40 miles (60 kilometers) away from Port Harcourt city, Nigeria’s oil capital in the delta, a region of swamps, mangroves and creeks roughly the same size as South Carolina. A pipeline and a filling station were near the accident site, but neither was affected.
President Goodluck Jonathan said in a statement he is “deeply saddened by the loss of many lives” caused by the explosion and “particularly distraught by the fact that once again, so many Nigerian lives have been lost in an avoidable fuel fire disaster.”

A photographer who was at the scene said that the accident occurred on a major East-West expressway that was being expanded. Construction workers, however, hadn’t yet reached the level where the accident occurred which remained a single lane, often forcing vehicles racing head-on to seek avoiding each other.
Alagoa said the accident “would not have happened” if the road had two lanes there. At least two contracts have been signed over the last six years to expand the expressway that runs through Niger Delta states, according to a government website. However, corruption often hinders or slows down road construction and maintenance projects. Accidents are also common on Nigeria’s poorly maintained roads. Drivers often travel at high speed and overtake slower vehicles, leading to head-on collisions with high death rates.”This tells a tragic story about the state of national infrastructure and the poverty of the people,” said Nnimmo Bassey, executive director of Environmental Rights Action.

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More than 100 people have been displaced due to the attack, siad the Nigerian Red Cross. Jos and surrounding Plateau state have been torn apart in recent years by violence pitting its different ethnic groups and major religions,Christianity and Islam, against each other. While divided by religion, politics and economics often fuel the fighting.

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The slayings come four days after authorities discovered nine bodies in the city with their throats slit. Boko Haram has carried out a campaign of bombings in its fight against the Nigeria government and public, but knife attacks are uncommon. The group is held responsible for more than 630 deaths this year alone, according to an Associated Press count.

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Pienaar told The Associated Press that the chimps tore off one of Oberle’s testicles and some fingers from one hand as well as mauling his head. This was “to my astonishment, I couldn’t believe it because I know those chimps personally,” he said. He said he found no negligence on the part of the Jane Goodall Institute’s Chimpanzee Eden SA in eastern South Africa. “The only thing that happened is Andrew stepped over the small barrier fence and went right up to the electric fence,” he said.

“We all know that they are tame chimps, but he shouldn’t have done that, he’s a researcher, he’s supposed to read the body language.” Oberle was leading a group of tourists at the time. The visitors were 10 meters (33 feet) from the second fence, as required by safety rules. After Oberle stepped over the first fence, the chimps dragged him under the electric fence, then out into a public area where they continued to attack him, Cussons said.

Cussons said he was happy that Pienaar found the chimps were involved in territorial defense and would not therefore be killed or punished.

He said he was forced to shoot one of the chimps, but not mortally, after he and a ranger failed to scare the animals into releasing Oberle. When they drove a car at them, chimp Nikki jumped onto the front and smashed the windshield, causing Cussons to fire. Nikki, aged about 16, was wounded in the abdomen and is being treated at the Johannesburg Zoo.

The other attacker, Amadeus, in its 20s, is on lockdown with its family at the sanctuary.

Pienaar, who has worked as a conservationist for 33 years, said he condoned the shooting, a last option under protocols that recommend first shock treatment or pepper sprays. “Other than that I’m happy with things,” Pienaar said. “I’m not having the chimps put down. I don’t think there’s reason for that.” Oberle is a post-graduate student of anthropology and primate behavior at the University of Texas at San Antonio. It was his second trip to study at the South African institute, which takes in orphaned and abused chimpanzees.

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He was in intensive care in critical condition Friday after undergoing surgery at the Mediclinic hospital in Nelspruit, 180 miles (300 kilometers) from Johannesburg, hospital officials said. The man had “multiple and severe bite wounds” and was dragged nearly half a mile (kilometer) by the chimpanzees, Wicks said.

A South African hospital says a U.S. anthropology student attacked by the chimpanzees he was studying remains sedated after six hours of surgery to clean his wounds and deal with his injuries. Andrew Oberle was talking to a tour group Thursday at the Jane Goodall Institute Chimpanzee Eden when two chimps pulled him under a security fence. He was bitten and dragged several hundred yards (meters). The Mediclinic Nelspruit hospital said Monday that Oberle remains in intensive care. His uncle, Carl Oberle, said his nephew had been placed in an induced coma “because he lost so much blood and his blood pressure was so low.”

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A local police commander, Philip Ndolo, told the press the gunmen launched hand grenades and shot at the congregation during the mass.

The AP reports that the bloodiest attack “was on the African Inland Church in Garissa, a town some 195 kilometers (120 miles) west of the Somali border. Attackers threw two grenades inside the church, only one of which exploded.”

As the congregation fled the church, gunmen opened fire causing more damage. Police officials confirmed that 10 people were killed in the attack at least 37 were wounded. The second attack took place at a Catholic church in the town of Garissa where a hand grenade attack wounded three people.

Garissa is a major Kenyan town near the border with Somalia. It is nearby the Dadaab refugee camp, which houses nearly 500,000 Somali refugees.

Prior to Sunday’s attack, armed Somali attackers kidnapped four workers on Friday from the Dabaab refugee camp. The kidnappers are thought to have crossed the border and are back in Kenya. In the attack a driver was shot dead by the kidnappers.

Cross-border attacks are frequent near the Somalia-Kenya border but have been on the rise over the past few months. Sunday’s attack is the deadliest to date.

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Morsi promised a “new Egypt” as he was inaugurated as the Arab world’s first freely elected Islamist president and Egypt’s fifth head of state since the overthrow of the monarchy some 60 years ago. He took the oath before the Supreme Constitutional Court in its Nile-side seat built to resemble an ancient Egyptian temple.

“We aspire to a better tomorrow, a new Egypt and a second republic,” Morsi told the judges of the court during a solemn ceremony shown live on state television.

“Today, the Egyptian people laid the foundation of a new life, absolute freedom, a genuine democracy and stability,” said Morsi, a 60-year-old U.S.-trained engineer.

Morsi earlier took a symbolic oath on Friday in Tahrir Square, birthplace of the uprising that ended Mubarak’s authoritarian rule last year, and vowed to reclaim presidential powers stripped from his office by the military council that took over from the ousted leader.

But by agreeing to take the oath before the court, rather than before parliament as is customary, he is bowing to the military’s will in an indication that the contest for power will continue.

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Philip Ndolo said Saturday that the attackers abandoned the vehicle they commandeered on Friday not far from the Somali border, and that the gang could have crossed the border after walking about eight hours.

Ndolo said Kenyan security forces are still pursuing the kidnappers and hostages. The armed attack happened Friday in Dadaab, a refugee camp in Kenya with nearly 500,000 Somalis. A Kenyan driver was shot and killed in the attack.

Ndolo also said that the Norwegian Refugee Council had scheduled armed security to escort their convoy through the camp but decided in the end to travel without security.

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When he takes the oath of office Saturday before the Supreme Constitutional Court, Morsi will also be the Arab world’s first freely elected Islamist leader and become Egypt’s fifth president since the overthrow of the monarchy some 60 years ago.

The court, housed in a Nile-side structure built to resemble an ancient Egyptian temple, stands next door to a military hospital to which Mubarak, 84, was transferred about two weeks ago after suffering a health scare in a nearby prison hospital.

Morsi took a symbolic oath on Friday in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, birthplace of last year’s uprising, before tens of thousands of Islamists supporters.

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He was in intensive care in critical condition Friday after undergoing surgery at the Mediclinic hospital in Nelspruit, 180 miles (300 kilometers) from Johannesburg, hospital officials said. The man had “multiple and severe bite wounds” and was dragged nearly half a mile (kilometer) by the chimpanzees, Wicks said. Edwin Jay, chairman of the Jane Goodall Institute South Africa, said the man had crossed the first of two fences separating the chimpanzees from visitors and was standing close to the second fence, which is electrified, at the time of the attack. Jay said the two chimpanzees involved were part of a group that had been rescued from Angola and brought to South Africa more than a decade ago. He said they were placed in their night enclosure and would be held there while sanctuary officials investigate what led to the attack and confirm the fencing is safe. Then they will be returned to the enclosure. Jay would not release the man’s name, saying only that he was an American researcher.

Tourists visiting the sanctuary at the time were evacuated safely, he said. The man lost part of an ear and parts of his fingers in the attack, according to the South African newspaper Beeld. It said the sanctuary’s director fired into the air to scare the chimps away from the man, then chased them back into their enclosure. The international institute founded by renowned primatologist Jane Goodall opened the sanctuary in 2006. It is a home to chimpanzees, which are not native to South Africa, rescued from further north in Africa. Some of the chimpanzees at the sanctuary lost their parents to poachers in countries where they are hunted for their meat, and others were held in captivity in cruel conditions.

In the United States, a Connecticut woman, Charla Nash, was attacked in 2009 by a friend’s chimpanzee that ripped off her nose, lips, eyelids and hands before being killed by police. The woman was blinded and has had a face transplant. Lawyers for Nash filed papers this week accusing state officials of failing to seize the animal before the mauling despite a warning from a staff member that it was dangerous.

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She was criticized for being elitist, vain, self-important, overbearing and oblivious to the plight of ordinary Egyptians. By contrast, Islamist President-elect Mohammed Morsi’s wife is a conservative, religious Muslim who wears a veil and did not attend college. Detractors consider her style to be emblematic of Egypt’s steady march toward conservative Islam, while supporters proclaim that her modest demeanor and background embody the democratic spirit of the revolution. Naglaa Ali Mahmoud has reportedly said she would prefer not to live in the Presidential Palace, and the couple has yet to move in. She also doesn’t want to be called the first lady. “I want to be called the president’s wife,” she told The Associated Press by telephone. “Who said that the president’s wife is the first lady anyways?” Instead, she said she prefers to be called Umm Ahmed, which means mother of Ahmed, her eldest son.

It’s a moniker that some secular Egyptian elites might disdain as patriarchal. Her defenders note that unlike the two first ladies before her, she has not taken on her husband’s last name in public in a sign of self-assertion that also falls in line with Islamic tradition throughout Egypt. If she must have a title, she says, she would not mind being called “the first servant” of the people. Her style so far could not be a more marked change in tone from the Mubaraks, who presided over massive corruption that enriched an elite cadre of businessmen and ruling party leaders while half the country of 85 million people struggled in abject poverty. Morsi and his sons, like many activists of the Muslim Brotherhood movement he belonged to, were imprisoned during the Mubarak regime’s three decades in power. The old regime banned the Brotherhood and persecuted, jailed and tortured its members as political opponents. But now, as an Egyptian expression goes, the pyramid has been turned on its head.

The differences between the first ladies are symbolic of the sea change in Egyptian politics. Morsi is the country’s first freely elected president in modern history, the first civilian and Islamist to hold the office. And the 84-year-old Mubarak is serving a life sentence in prison for failing to stop the killing of hundreds of protesters during the uprising. His two sons Alaa and Gamal were recently acquitted of corruption on a legal technicality, but remain in jail awaiting a new trial on charges of insider trading. For the nearly three decades of Mubarak’s rule, roads were paved and flowers were planted for Suzanne’s arrivals, sometimes just temporarily while she briefly visited a university or a park, at the cost of thousands of dollars.

Umm Ahmed sought immediately to draw a clear distinction between herself and her predecessors, including former first lady Jehan Sadat, who, like Suzanne Mubarak, was also university-educated, impeccably dressed and coiffed and the daughter of a British mother. But under the glare of her newfound fame, already the 50-year-old, bespectacled Umm Ahmed’s style of dress is being picked apart. The way she wears the headscarf has been deemed by elites as the antithesis of elegance. In fact, there is already a war of words on social media over her conservative, modest style, which is shared by the vast majority of women in Egypt’s impoverished villages and towns.

Her black abaya, or robe, is another mark of her mores. It is same one worn by many female followers of the Muslim Brotherhood. She does not wear make-up or paint her nails in line with conservative Islamic tradition. Some of her detractors are not opposed to her wearing a headscarf, but more with her choice of headscarves, long scarves in solid colors that drape past her shoulders and are seen as a sort of Muslim Brotherhood uniform. “I don’t have a problem with her hijab (Islamic headscarf).

But I do have a problem that it is phosphoric green,” blogger Mahmoud Salem, a secular liberal, told the AP. He believes her image sends a message that this is what Muslim girls should dress like and will alienate Christians and Muslims who do not cover their hair. “At the end of the day, the first lady is diplomatically representing Egypt. We did not choose to make her a public persona. (The Muslim Brotherhood) made her a public persona” who will be scrutinized, he added.

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For now at least, Morsi’s ability to shift policy dramatically in favor of Hamas seems limited. It’s unclear how much power Egypt’s ruling generals will hand to the new president, and the country is beset by existential problems that demand his urgent attention, especially a crumbling economy. The Brotherhood’s priority is to be accepted as a political player in Egypt and the West, said Mideast analyst Mouin Rabbani. “They are not using their newfound status to actively support Hamas, whether in the conflict with Fatah or in the conflict with Israel,” he said. At the same time, Morsi’s victory appears to hurt Abbas, who relied on Morsi’s ousted predecessor, pro-Western President Hosni Mubarak, as an intermediary with Hamas, Israel and the West. Regime change in Egypt hits Abbas at a time when he’s increasingly isolated and irrelevant. Negotiations with Israel, reconciliation with Hamas and a bid to win U.N. recognition of a state of Palestine are frozen, while his self-rule government in the West Bank faces financial collapse. When Egypt announced Sunday that Morsi edged out Ahmed Shafiq, a former prime minister under Mubarak, and would become the country’s new president, spontaneous celebrations erupted in Gaza. Automatic rifle fire and shouts of “God is Great” reverberated across Gaza City, women threw candies at passers-by from balconies, and bikers waved Egyptian flags.

Gazans celebrated the hope that the Brotherhood would grant them freedom of movement, after five years of being cooped up in their tiny territory. The Hamas takeover in 2007 prompted Israel and Mubarak-led Egypt to seal Gaza’s borders. Israel eased the closure two years ago, allowing most imports of consumer goods, and Egypt’s post-Mubarak interim government allowed more travel through the Rafah terminal on the Gaza-Egypt border. But many restrictions on travelers remained, and there was no talk about Gaza-Egypt trade. Instead, hundreds of smuggling tunnels tolerated by Egypt kept supplying Gaza with goods. Ibrahim Derawi, an Egyptian analyst close to the Brotherhood, said he expects new border arrangements between Egypt and Gaza soon. Morsi “will not accept the siege on Gaza,” said Derawi. Morsi met several times over the past year with Hamas leaders from Gaza, most recently two months ago, said a senior Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the contacts.

He said Morsi promised to open Rafah 24/7, up from eight hours a day five days a week, and to be more flexible on visas. Even so, major change is not in the cards, acknowledged the Hamas official who deals with border issues. Egypt’s security chiefs still consider Gaza a threat because of the ties between Gaza militants and al-Qaida-inspired groups in Egypt’s Sinai next to Gaza. They have carried out attacks on Israeli targets and others in the desert. Travel restrictions on Gaza men under 40, considered the main potential pool of militants, would likely remain in place. A complete opening of the Gaza-Egypt border, including trade, would also have the unintended consequence of deepening the separation between the West Bank and Gaza, which flank Israel but are supposed to be part of a single Palestinian state in the future, along with east Jerusalem. All three territories were captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. For more than a decade, Israel has restricted travel between the West Bank and Gaza, citing security.

Morsi’s victory is expected to strengthen the hand of Hamas pragmatists, including the movement’s supreme leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal who is seeking re-election and in recent months faced off against hard-line Hamas leaders in Gaza. Mashaal wants Hamas to return to its ideological roots as a branch of the Brotherhood, which is open to alliances with non-Islamists and espouses non-violence. Formed in Gaza in the late 1980s, Hamas adopted a militant ideology as part of its conflict with Israel, sending suicide bombers and other attackers into Israel, and in recent years has become increasingly beholden to anti-Israel Iran.

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The case exposes the tenuous nature of the power-sharing agreement in Tunisia’s ruling coalition, which consists of a moderate Islamist party that won the most seats in parliament and two secular parties. Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali is from the Islamist Ennahda party, while President Moncef Marzouki is from the liberal Congress for the Republic. Marzouki said the prime minister overstepped his authority when he ordered the extradition of Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi, Gadhafi’s last prime minister, to Libya where he is wanted for alleged crimes. Marzouki, a former human rights campaigner, had opposed the extradition on grounds that Al-Mahmoudi might not get a fair trial in Libya, and his life could be in danger. “Extradition has more to do with Tunisia’s foreign policy than the judiciary, and foreign policy is the prerogative of the president of the republic,” he said in a statement conveyed by his spokesman, Adnan Mancer, late Sunday. “It was an illegitimate decision taken unilaterally.” The statement added that the president was ready to bring the matter to the constitutional assembly, Tunisia’s first elected body.

In a press conference, Minister for Human Rights Samir Dilou and Justice Minister Nourreddine Bhiri supported the prime minister’s move. “It was purely technical and administrative operation following the judicial, legal and constitutional procedures,” said Dilou, who is also the government spokesman. Bhiri added that the presidency “did not have the right to accept or refuse extraditions” ? a power he said belonged to the cabinet. The two ministers are both from Jebali’s Ennahda party. Al-Mahmoudi, 67, was arrested in September for illegally crossing into Tunisia as he tried to flee to Algeria, where Gadhafi’s family members had sought refuge. Since then, Libya has clamored for the repatriation of Al-Mahmoudi to answer for crimes it says he committed during Gadhafi’s reign. Tunisian courts had approved the extradition. But officials from Libya’s former regime have not fared well in the hands of Libya’s new leaders, who overthrew them. Gadhafi and one of his sons were executed upon capture last year.

In January, 15 Tunisian and international human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, signed a statement opposing Al-Mahmoudi’s extradition, saying he risked death or torture if he was returned to Libya. Marzouki said the three parties in the government had agreed to wait until after Libya’s elections, set for July 7, as well as a report from a Tunisian fact-finding commission that went to Libya in May to determine if a fair trial was possible. The commission report has not yet been issued. Ennahda is by far the most powerful member of the coalition, with some 89 seats in the 217-seat assembly compared to a total of 49 for its two coalition partners.

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The two pleaded not guilty to the charges and were remanded into custody. Kenya has seen a spate of attacks in recent months following the country’s decision last October to send troops into neighboring Somalia to fight al-Shabab militants. However, al-Shabab and its partner organization al-Qaida have not traditionally used Iranian operatives in its operations. Iranian agents are suspected in attacks or thwarted attacks around the globe over the last year, including in Azerbaijan, Thailand and India. Most of the plots had connections to Israeli targets. Several resorts on Kenya’s coast are Israeli-owned. Militants in 2002 bombed an Israeli-owned luxury hotel near Mombasa, killing 13 people.

The militants also tried to shoot down an Israeli airliner at the same time. An al-Qaida operative was linked to that attack. In another terror-related development, the death toll from a grenade and gunfire attack just outside Mombasa on Sunday rose to three on Monday, officials said. Some 25 people were wounded. Police official Aggrey Adoli said Monday that anti-terror police took one suspect into custody for the attacks, which he said involved three explosions and heavy gunfire. Police official Elijah Rop said one of the people being treated in the hospital is suspected of having taken part in the attack. Sunday’s attack came only two days after the U.S. Embassy in Kenya issued a terror warning for Mombasa.

Kenyan officials on Sunday protested the warning, saying it was harming the coast’s tourism industry. The gunfire and grenade attack happened only hours after the officials complained about the U.S. warning.

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He was scheduled to address the nation Sunday night in his first speech after being declared president. On the sidelines of the political drama are the liberal and secular youth groups that drove the uprising against Mubarak, left to wonder whether Egypt has taken a step towards becoming an Islamist state. Some grudgingly supported Morsi in the face of Ahmed Shafiq, who was Mubarak’s last prime minister, while others boycotted the vote. Morsi will now have to reassure them that he represents the whole country, not just Islamists, and will face enormous challenges after security and the economy badly deteriorated in the transition period. Pro-democracy leader Mohammed ElBaradei urged unity after the results were announced. “It is time we work all as Egyptians as part of a national consensus to build Egypt that is based on freedom and social justice,” he wrote on his Twitter account. The elections left the nation deeply polarized with one side backing Shafiq, who promised to provide stability and prevent Egypt from becoming a theocracy. Because of his military career, many saw him as the military’s preferred candidate. In the other camp are those eager for democratic change and backers of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood who were persecuted, jailed and banned under Mubarak but now find themselves one of the two most powerful groups in Egypt. The other is the ruling military council that took power after the uprising and is headed by Mubarak’s defense minister of 20 years. Just one week ago, at the moment polls were closing in the runoff election, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) issued constitutional amendments that stripped the president’s office of most of its major powers. The ruling generals made themselves the final arbiters over the most pressing issues still complicating the transition? such as writing the constitution, legislating, passing the state budget, and granted military police broad powers to detain civilians.

“I am happy the Brotherhood won because now the revolution will continue on the street against both of them, the Brotherhood and the SCAF,” said Lobna Darwish, an activist who has boycotted the elections. Morsi, the 60-year old U.S.-trained engineer, narrowly defeated Shafiq with 51.7 percent of the vote versus 48.3, by a margin of only 800,000 votes, the election commission said. Turnout was 51 percent. Also, a few days before that constitutional declaration, a court dissolved the freely elected parliament, which is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, leaving the military now in charge of legislating. “The revolution passed an important test,”said Yasser Ali, a spokesman for Morsi’s campaign. “But the road is still long.” Another Morsi’s spokesman Ahmed Abdel-Attie said words cannot describe the “joy” in this historic moment. “We got to this moment because of the blood of the martyrs of the revolution,” he said at a news conference after the results were announced. “Egypt will start a new phase in its history.” This is the first time modern Egypt will be headed by an Islamist and by a freely elected civilian. The country’s last four presidents over the past six decades have all came from the ranks of the military. “Congratulations because this means the end of the Mubarak state,” said Shady el-Ghazali Harb, a prominent activist who was among the leaders of the protests in January and February last year. The results of the elections were delayed for four days amid accusations of manipulation and foul play by both sides, raising political tensions in Egypt to a fever pitch.

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Both candidates have rallied supporters to the streets in a show of strength amid speculations about last-minute backdoor deals between the powerful ruling generals and the rising Islamists over power-sharing arrangements. Anticipation was high and there were fears violence could break out after Sunday’s announcement.

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The official says police found 6 kilograms (13 pounds) of ammonium nitrate and other items they believe can be used to make a bomb. Police said an improvised bomb killed 1 person and injured 32 others in downtown Nairobi last month. Officials believe ammonium nitrate was used to assemble that bomb. Al-Qaida linked al-Shabab militants from Somalia have threatened to retaliate after Kenya sent troops to Somalia to pursue the militants.

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Brotherhood leaders said the ruling military council is holding the election results hostage as it bargains to maintain its lock on power. Tens of thousands of Brotherhood supporters have rallied in the capital’s Tahrir Square in a show of force backing candidate Mohammed Morsi, who has warned against manipulating results in a vote that he says he has won.

The military for its part declared it was acting for “higher national interests” and vowed to crack down on any violence by any group unhappy with the electoral outcome. At stake is whether or not Egypt will emerge from the instability of the 16-month transition that followed Mubarak’s 2011 overthrow, or whether the power struggles will continue or even escalate to a more dangerous level. The Brotherhood has said repeatedly that it would not resort to violence, but several media outlets have launched a vigorous campaign against the movement claiming it will plunge the country into chaos if Morsi does not win.

Tensions soared Wednesday when the country’s military-appointed election commission indefinitely delayed announcing the results of the weekend elections. The Brotherhood announced soon after polls closed Sunday that it had beaten rival candidate Ahmed Shafiq, an ex-air force commander whom many view as the military’s preferred candidate, by 52 percent to 48 percent. Shafiq has also claimed victory by a narrow margin.

Many accuse the military of planning to direct the election commission to announce a Shafiq win. Others say the commission has determined there was a genuine Shafiq victory but fears that no one will believe them. The commission itself says it is sorting out the claims of election violations filed by both candidates.

The Brotherhood has raised another possibility: Just before the vote, the nation’s highest court dissolved the Brotherhood-led parliament and the military granted itself new exceptional powers, leaving the next president with limited authority. The generals won’t let the commission announce Morsi’s victory until they accept those decisions, some movement figures say. ”

The military council is waging a psychological war and the delay in announcing the results is just part of it,” said Saad Emara, a Brotherhood member of the disbanded parliament. “They are holding the results to press the Brotherhood to accept (the military decision) as a de facto matter. As if saying, ‘We are going to let the commission announce Morsi as a winner, in return for you shutting up and not talking about the constitutional declaration or the disbandment of parliament.’” The Brotherhood sent its supporters to the streets for the fourth consecutive day to protest the military’s power grab. On Friday, it was the biggest such rally, and protesters called on Morsi to be sworn in as president in Tahrir Square.

“We are in the middle of a struggle of wills between the military and the Brotherhood (together) with the forces in the square. Each party is trying to use all their cards to put pressure on the other party, pushing to the brink, “said Mohammed Habib, former deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who resigned from the group a year ago. The military has blamed the Brotherhood indirectly for stirring tensions. “Announcing the results of the presidential election early, before the official statement, is unjustified and is one of the main reasons behind the division and confusion prevailing on the political scene,” said a statement from the council read on state television. It did not mention the Brotherhood by name. The military also defended its newly issued “supplementary constitutional declaration” that granted the generals sweeping powers, including legislative authority and approval of the budget. The declaration was met by condemnation both by Egyptian and by international groups, saying it raised doubts about the military’s commitment to transfer powers to an elected civilian authority by July 1.

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The military for its part declared it was acting for “higher national interests” and vowed to crack down on any violence by any group unhappy with the electoral outcome. At stake is whether or not Egypt will emerge from the instability of the 16-month transition that followed Mubarak’s 2011 overthrow, or whether the power struggles will continue or even escalate to a more dangerous level. The Brotherhood has said repeatedly that it would not resort to violence, but several media outlets have launched a vigorous campaign against the movement claiming it will plunge the country into chaos if Morsi does not win. Tensions soared Wednesday when the country’s military-appointed election commission indefinitely delayed announcing the results of the weekend elections. The Brotherhood announced soon after polls closed Sunday that it had beaten rival candidate Ahmed Shafiq, an ex-air force commander who many view as the military’s preferred candidate, by 52 percent to 48 percent. Shafiq has also claimed victory by a narrow margin.

Many accuse the military of planning to direct the election commission to announce a Shafiq win. Others say the commission has determined there was a genuine Shafiq victory but fears that no one will believe them. The commission itself says it is sorting out the claims of election violations filed by both candidates. The Brotherhood has raised another possibility: Just before the vote, the nation’s highest court dissolved the Brotherhood-led parliament and the military granted itself new exceptional powers, leaving the next president with limited authority. The generals won’t let the commission announce Morsi’s victory until they accept those decisions, some movement figures say. “The military council is waging a psychological war and the delay in announcing the results is just part of it,” said Saad Emara, a Brotherhood member of the disbanded parliament. “They are holding the results to press the Brotherhood to accept (the military decision) as a de facto matter. As if saying, ‘We are going to let the commission announce Morsi as a winner, in return for you shutting up and not talking about the constitutional declaration or the disbandment of parliament.’” The Brotherhood sent its supporters to the streets for the fourth consecutive day to protest the military’s power grab.

On Friday, it was the biggest such rally, and protesters called on Morsi to be sworn in as president in Tahrir Square. “We are in the middle of a struggle of wills between the military and the Brotherhood (together) with the forces in the square. Each party is trying to use all their cards to put pressure on the other party, pushing to the brink, “said Mohammed Habib, former deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who resigned from the group a year ago. The military has blamed the Brotherhood indirectly for stirring tensions. “Announcing the results of the presidential election early, before the official statement, is unjustified and is one of the main reasons behind the division and confusion prevailing on the political scene,” said a statement from the council read on state television. It did not mention the Brotherhood by name. The military also defended its newly issued “supplementary constitutional declaration” that granted the generals sweeping powers, including legislative authority and approval of the budget.

The declaration was met by condemnation both by Egyptian and by international groups, saying it raised doubts about the military’s commitment to transfer powers to an elected civilian authority by July 1. The constitutional declaration was “a necessity” during this “critical period,” the military statement said. “Whatever decisions issued by the (military council) are guided only by higher national interests and not any other.” The military’s move has nonetheless brought many Egyptian critics of the Brotherhood to the side of the Islamist movement against what they now see as a larger threat: the entrenchment of military power.

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Wildlife officials say Kenya is one of the countries being used as a conduit to smuggle illegal ivory from Africa to Southeast Asian countries. Demand for elephant ivory is high in countries in that region, especially China, where it is used to make ivory ornaments.

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Lawmaker Blessing Chibundo of the Zimbabwe prime minister’s party said Friday the campaign, the first of its kind involving the country’s leaders, is a show of “political will” to fight AIDS.

Medical officials running the program said more than 40 lawmakers have volunteered to undergo circumcision, a procedure that research shows reduces the risk of HIV transmission.

Infection in Zimbabwe runs at about 13 percent of the population. Chibundo was the first to be circumcised Friday. Officials said 107 legislators and their spouses have been given confidential virus tests so far.

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He also accused the group of striking “backdoor deals” with outside powers to sway the results and urged world capitals not to interfere. Officials postponed declaring a winner in the election, spurring political tensions and charges of deals, fraud and interference from Egypt’s ruling military council.

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The accusation raises temperatures and the possibility of a backlash from the Brotherhood if its rival, former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, is declared the winner. On top of the potentially explosive dispute over the election is murkiness over the latest health scare of the 84-year-old former President Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in Egypt’s uprising last year and is now serving a life sentence in prison. Overnight, state media reported that he suffered a stroke and was put on life support. He was transferred to a military hospital from the Cairo prison hospital where he has been kept since his June 2 conviction and sentencing for failing to stop the killing of protesters during the uprising. Security officials said Wednesday he was in a coma but off life support and his heart and other vital organs were functioning. But the ambiguity over his condition has fueled skepticism among the public, where many already suspect that reports of his deteriorating condition are merely a pretext by security and military officials sympathetic to the former boss to get him out of prison to a more comfortable facility.

Egypt’s election of a successor to Mubarak was long touted as a landmark moment, the choosing of the country’s first civilian president in generations, who was meant to take the reins of power from the generals who have ruled directly since Mubarak’s removal on Feb. 11, 2011. Instead, it is shaping into a possible confrontation between the Brotherhood on one side and the military and entrenched elements of Mubarak’s old regime. In a series of swift moves the past week, the ruling generals have cornered for themselves sweeping powers that effectively subordinate the next president and severely limit his capability for independent action. A court order dissolved parliament, which was led by the Brotherhood, and the military issued a constitutional declaration that makes the generals the nation’s legislators and gives them control of the budget. They will dominate the security system after reshaping a key National Defense Council to keep it under their control, not the president’s. The generals will also oversee the process of writing Egypt’s new, permanent constitution. Allies of the military and Mubarak-era officials also hold sway in the judiciary, the prosecutor’s office and the election commission. “It is clear that there is sharp polarization between the army and the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Islamist Montasser el-Zayat, a prominent rights lawyer and activist. “It suggests that the next few days will probably be difficult for Egypt and the Egyptians.” Hundreds of Brotherhood supporters camped out in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Wednesday night, denouncing the ruling military and vowing to stay in place until the parliament, which was dissolved last week on a court order, is reinstated.

Egypt’s Elections Commission said in a statement that announcing results will be postponed from Thursday because a panel of judges has to look into some 400 complaints over voting submitted by both Shafiq and Morsi’s campaign. The Commission gave no new date. Some of the complaints were presented on Wednesday night, shortly before the commission released its statement. It said that for five hours, the commission listened to lawyers of both camps. Shafiq’s lawyers claimed fraud in 14 of Egypt’s 27 provinces where they said ballots sent to polling centers were already marked in favor of Morsi. Morsi’s lawyers said that the voters’ lists included soldiers, who are barred from voting, and the names of dead people. Security officials said several employees of the state press, where election ballots were printed, were being questioned by prosecutors over allegations that thousands of the ballots were marked in favor of Morsi.

Already, three heads of polling centers in different parts of the country have been arrested for questioning about alleged vote rigging. There have been more complaints about last weekend’s presidential runoff than any election since the ouster of Mubarak. But foreign and local monitors say the violations they observed were not serious or large-scale enough to question the legality of the process.

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The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He said the prison authorities are considering moving him to the military hospital nearby in Maadi, a suburb near Torah Prison where he is held.
MENA also reported he will likely be moved in the next hours if his health deteriorates.
Moving Mubarak out of prison would likely anger many in the public, where there is a widespread suspicion that security and military officials sympathetic to their old boss are giving him preferential treatment.
Mubarak was sentenced to a life in prison on June 2 for failing to stop the killing of protesters during last year’s uprising against him. He was transferred to prison after spending months in a military facility in detention.

Officials have since repeatedly reported his health was deteriorating.
Since his arrival at the prison directly after his sentencing, Mubarak has been suffering from high blood pressure and breathing difficulties and deep depression, according to prison officials. His lawyer said he didn’t trust the doctors and appealed for his transfer to a better equipped hospital.

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The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He said the prison authorities are considering moving him to the military hospital nearby in Maadi, a suburb near Torah Prison where he is held. MENA also reported he will likely be moved in the next hours if his health deteriorates. Moving Mubarak out of prison would likely anger many in the public, where there is a widespread suspicion that security and military officials sympathetic to their old boss are giving him preferential treatment. Mubarak was sentenced to a life in prison on June 2 for failing to stop the killing of protesters during last year’s uprising against him. He was transferred to prison after spending months in a military facility in detention.

Officials have since repeatedly reported his health was deteriorating. Since his arrival at the prison directly after his sentencing, Mubarak has been suffering from high blood pressure and breathing difficulties and deep depression, according to prison officials. His lawyer said he didn’t trust the doctors and appealed for his transfer to a better equipped hospital.

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Muthui Kariuki, who is handling public relations for Korean Air in Kenya, said Monday that the notice has been removed from the website and that the word “primitive” came as a result of a mistake in translation from Korean to English. Kariuki says the airline, which is supposed to launch the flights this Thursday, will post an apology. Kenyans on Twitter and Facebook were angry about the use of the word.

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Military spokeswoman Lt. Col Avital Leibovich said the assailants have not been identified but said defense officials suspect Palestinian militants in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip might have been involved. Southern Gaza borders Sinai, and infiltrators can exit Gaza through tunnels under the border. Several hours after the attack, an Israeli airstrike killed two men on a motorcycle in the northern Gaza Strip near the Israeli border. The Islamic Jihad said the men were members on a “reconnaissance” mission and vowed revenge. Hours later, another airstrike killed two more. The Israeli military said the target was a squad of Palestinian rocket launchers. Israeli military officials said the incidents were not connected to the earlier infiltration from Egypt. The mountainous Sinai desert harbors an array of militant groups, including Palestinian extremists and al-Qaida-inspired jihadists, Egyptian and Israeli security officials say.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Army Radio that there has been “a worrisome deterioration of Egyptian control” over the Sinai. Vice Premier Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister and military chief, said he hoped Israel could conduct a security dialogue with the Egyptians and demand more forceful policing in the Sinai. “No doubt Sinai has become a security problem,” Mofaz told Army Radio. “(Monday’s) incident ratchets it up a notch.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack targeted civilians building the security fence. “Its construction is a paramount national interest,” Netanyahu declared. There was no immediate comment from Egypt on the attack. Israel stepped up construction of a security fence along the 230-kilometer (150-mile) border with Egypt in a bid to keep out both militants and illegal migrants from Africa. The government has said it expects the fence to be completed by the end of the year. In Monday’s attack, two civilian vehicles carrying construction workers were driving toward the security fence when militants activated a roadside bomb and opened light arms and anti-tank fire at them, Leibovich said. One of the vehicles was struck and turned over into a nearby ditch, killing a worker, she said. Israeli troops rushed to the area and engaged in a gunbattle with the militants. One militant, who was carrying a large explosive device, blew up. Another militant, and possibly two others, were also killed, but others may have escaped back into Egypt, she said.

There was no word on their identities or membership in any of a wide range of armed groups. Leibovich said Israelis living in five small communities in the area were instructed to lock themselves inside their homes, and two major southern roads were closed to civilian traffic while troops scoured the area for other militants. The military later concluded no other gunmen were in the area. Two rockets believed fired from Sinai struck southern Israel over the weekend, though Leibovich said it was unclear whether the two events were related. In the most serious incident in recent years, gunmen from Sinai infiltrated Israel and ambushed vehicles on a desert highway last August, killing eight Israelis. Six Egyptian soldiers were killed during Israel’s hunt for the militants, causing a diplomatic crisis between the two neighbors that ended with an Israeli apology.

That attack shattered decades of calm along the frontier area, prompting officials on both sides of the border to examine security arrangements and pushing Israel to speed up construction of the border fence. As part of its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, Israel agreed to return the Sinai, captured in the 1967 Mideast war, but insisted the desert triangle separating Asia from Africa be significantly demilitarized. As the frontier area grew more volatile following Mubarak’s ouster, Israel allowed thousands more Egyptian troops to police the area and has beefed up its own military deployment along the border.

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But the military handed itself the lion’s share power over the new president, sharpening the possibility of confrontation.

With parliament dissolved and martial law effectively in force, the generals issued an interim constitution granting themselves sweeping authorities that ensure their hold on the state and subordinate the president.

They will be Egypt’s lawmakers, they will control the budget and they will determine who writes the permanent constitution that will define the country’s future. But as they claimed a narrow victory over Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq in a deeply polarizing election, the Brotherhood challenged the military’s power grab.

The group said Sunday it did not recognize the dissolution of parliament, where it was the largest party. It also rejected the military’s right to issue an interim constitution and oversee the drafting of a new one.

That pointed to a potential struggle over spheres of authority between Egypt’s two strongest forces. The Brotherhood has campaigned on a platform of bringing Egypt closer to a form of Islamic rule, but the military’s grip puts it in a position to block that.

Instead any conflict would likely center on more basic questions of control, if the Brotherhood pushes a fight. It has reached accommodations with the military in the past.

Official final results are not due until Thursday, and Shafiq’s campaign challenged the Brotherhood claim, which was based on the group’s compilation of election officials’ returns from nearly all polling centers nationwide.

But at their campaign headquarters, the Brotherhood officials and supporters were ebullient over the turn of fate.

The fundamentalist group that was banned for most of its 80-year history and repeatedly subjected to crackdowns under Mubarak‘s rule now held the chair from which their nemesis was ousted by last year’s 18 days of mass protests.

The uprising was launched by secular, leftist young activists, joined only later by the Brotherhood’s leadership as millions took to the street, seeking an end to an authoritarian regime considered hopelessly corrupt.

In a victory speech at the headquarters, Morsi clearly sought to assuage the fears of a large sector of Egyptians that the Brotherhood will try to impose stricter provisions of Islamic law. He said he seeks “stability, love and brotherhood for the Egyptian civil, national, democratic, constitutional and modern state” and made no mention of Islamic law.

“Thank God, who successfully led us to this blessed revolution. Thank God, who guided the people of Egypt to this correct path, the road of freedom, democracy,” the bearded, 60-year-old U.S.-educated engineer declared.

He vowed to all Egyptians, “men, women, mothers, sisters … all political factions, the Muslims, the Christians” to be “a servant for all of them. We are not about taking revenge or settling scores. We are all brothers of this nation, we own it together, and we are equal in rights and duties.”

Morsi, who just before the two days of voting declared he “loves” the military, did not make show of defiance against the generals. Still, the speaker of the parliament, Brotherhood member Saad el-Katatni, stood next to him in a sign of the group’s insistence the legislature remains in place.

Some in Brotherhood were ready for a challenge. “Down with military rule,” the supporters chanted at the headquarters. The secular revolutionary group April 6, which helped launch the anti-Mubarak uprising, congratulated the Brotherhood on its win.

“The next phase is more difficult. We must all unite against the oppressive rule of the military council,” its founder Ahmed Maher said.

By the group’s count, Morsi took 13.2 million votes, or 51.8 percent, to Shafiq’s 48.1 percent out of 25.5 million votes with more than 99 percent of the more than 13,000 poll centers counted.

The count was based on results announced by election officials at individual counting centers, where each campaign has representatives who compile the numbers and make them public before the formal announcement.

The Brotherhood’s early, partial counts proved generally accurate in last month’s first round vote.

The Shafiq campaign accused the Brotherhood of “deceiving the people” by declaring victory. A campaign spokesman on the independent ONTV channel said counting was still going on with Shafiq slightly ahead so far.

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Already, the Muslim Brotherhood was warning that they would launch protests if Shafiq is declared the winner. After polls closed Sunday night after two days of voting, the Brotherhood claimed an early lead in the hand counting, though it narrowed as more results rolled in. After midnight, Morsi led at 55 percent to Shafiq’s 45 percent of the votes from just under half of the country’s more than 13,000 polling stations, according to the Brotherhood. The figures were based on results announced by election officials at individual counting centers, where each campaign has representatives who compile the numbers and make them public before the formal declaration. The early, partial counts proved generally accurate in the first round of the election last month, which narrowed the field down from 13 candidates to two. “If it happens that they announce he (Shafiq) is the winner, then there is forgery,” said Brotherhood spokesman Murad Mohammed Ali. “We will return to the streets” ? though he added, “we don’t believe in violence.” Shafiq, a former air force commander, is seen as the generals’ favorite in the contest and would likely work closely with them. So closely that his opponents fear the result will be a continuation of the military-backed, authoritarian police state that Mubarak ran for nearly 29 years. A victory by Morsi could translate into a rockier tussle over spheres of power between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military. Trying to rally the public in the last hours of voting, the Brotherhood presented a Morsi presidency as the last hope to prevent total control by the military council of Mubarak-era generals.

“We got rid of one devil and got 19,” said Mohammed Kanouna, referring to Mubarak and the members of the military council as he voted for Morsi after night fell in Cairo’s Dar el-Salam slum. “We have to let them know there is a will of the people above their will.” Sunday night, the Brotherhood seemed to lay the groundwork for a confrontation with the military over its power grab. It rejected last week’s order by the Supreme Constitutional Court dissolving parliament, where they were the largest party, as a “coup against the entire democratic process.” It also rejected the military’s right to declare an interim constitution and vowed that an assembly created by parliament last week before its dissolution will write the new charter, not one picked by the generals. However, the Brotherhood has reached accommodations with the generals at times over the past 16 months since Mubarak’s fall, as it struck deals with Mubarak’s regime itself. It also has no power to force recognition of the parliament-created constituent assembly, which already seems discounted after parliament’s dissolution and is likely to be formally disbanded by a pending court ruling. Lawmakers are literally locked out of parliament, which is ringed by troops.

The race has been deeply polarizing. Critics of Shafiq, an admirer and longtime friend of Mubarak, see him as an extension of the old regime that millions sought to uproot when they staged a stunning uprising that toppled the man who ruled Egypt for three decades. Morsi’s opponents, in turn, fear that if he wins, the Brotherhood will take over the nation and turn it into an Islamic state, curbing freedoms and consigning minority Christians and women to second-class citizens. While each has a core of strong supporters, each got about a quarter of the vote in the first round voting among 13 candidates last month, others saw the choice as a bitter one. The prospect that the generals will still hold most power even after their nominal handover of authority to civilians by July 1 has deepened the gloom, leaving some feeling the vote was essentially meaningless. “Things have not changed at all.

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There are tensions between Palestinian in Nahr el-Bared and Lebanese soldiers left over from three months of clashes in 2007 between the army and an al-Qaida-inspired Islamic extremist group. The battles killed more than 170 soldiers, as well as dozens of militants and Palestinian civilians. Security officials speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations said the confrontations erupted Monday after Palestinians tried to attack army bases at the camp, setting fire to an army vehicle. There are about 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

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Council diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks were private, said members still had questions about ECOWAS’ plans and would be examining the request to authorize military action. Brieuc Pont, spokesman for France’s U.N. Mission, tweeted that the ECOWAS-Security Council talks made “good progress … to help Mali uphold its constitutional order and territorial integrity.” Salamatu Hussaini Suleiman, the ECOWAS commissioner for political affairs, peace and security, was upbeat, telling reporters after the meeting that the response from the council was “very, very positive.” “We are requesting the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution that will legitimize any action, military action, that we are going to take in Maliu,” she said. “The situation in Mali is very, very critical,” Suleiman said, “and from the response and the support and encouragement we had from council members, we believe this resolution is going to be passed very soon.” She added that the large number of questions indicated the council’s commitment to resolving the crisis in Mali.

In a joint communique on Wednesday, the Security Council and the African Union urged implementation of an April 6 agreement between ECOWAS and the perpetrators of the March 21 coup and demanded an end to hostilities in the north by rebel groups. They acknowledged ? without supporting, efforts by ECOWAS “to explore options to restore peace and security in Mali in the context of upholding Mali’s territorial integrity.” When soldiers led by a middle-ranking officer first seized power, they said they were ousting Mali’s democratically elected leader because of his poor handling of the rebellion in the north, which began in January.

After the coup, Tuareg rebels took advantage of the power vacuum and within weeks took control of the north aided by an Islamic faction. The coup was a major setback for democracy in the nation of 15.4 million at the bottom of the Sahara desert. A dozen candidates had been due to run in the first round of presidential elections on April 29. ECOWAS has appointed Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Campore as a mediator in Mali and he is engaging groups that have grievances and complaints? but not terrorist groups, Suleiman said. ECOWAS leaders have also given a mandate for 3,000 troops to be put on standby, she said. Suleiman said an initial planning conference is taking place in Abidjan with experts from ECOWAS, the United Nations, the United States, France and other partners who are trying to develop an “exact strategy.” She said the initial concept, endorsed by the Security Council, “will be to secure the transitional government in Bamako and thereafter assist in restructuring the Malian army and working with them toward solving the crisis in the northern part of the country.”

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The group, which held the most seats in parliament, says the decision will lead to more dangerous days than those under Mubarak’s repressive regime. Friday’s statement says progress made since Mubarak was ousted last year is being “wiped out and overturned.”

The Supreme Constitutional Court’s decision leaves Egypt with no parliament and concentrates power even more firmly in the hands of the generals who took over from Mubarak. Ahmed Shafiq, who was Mubarak’s last prime minister, is set to face the Brotherhood’s candidate Mohammed Morsi in a presidential run-off Saturday and Sunday.

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The airline once used Spanish international carrier Iberia to perform maintenance on its planes, but chose MyTechnic in 2010 as it could have technicians on the ground in Nigeria, Hathiramani said. The airline flies the aircraft to Istanbul for heavy maintenance checks, the executive said. Hathiramani said that Dana still consults with Iberia, now owned by International Consolidated Airlines Group. However, an Iberia spokesman told the AP that the company ended its maintenance contract with the carrier in 2010. Hathiramani said he didn’t know whether MyTechnic offered a cheaper maintenance contract than Iberia. Dana is a major brand in Nigeria, run by Indian families who have lived in the country for decades. Its holdings also include a plastic manufacturer, a pharmaceutical arm and other industries. However, there have been safety concerns raised in the past about its importation of Kia automobiles in Nigeria, with some complaining the company refused to honor recall notices issued by the manufacturer. Hathiramani said he had no information about those complaints. Aviation authorities have halted flights by Dana Air as an investigation into the crash of the plane coming into Lagos from the nation’s capital, Abuja. Its pilots radioed in just before the crash to say both engines had failed. Since the crash, civil aviation authorities in Nigeria have come under increasing political and public pressure.

The civil aviation authority grounded Air Nigeria, the country’s second-largest airline, for safety checks after a strike by engineers. On Thursday, its flights had resumed, as customers in a domestic terminal at Lagos’ Murtala Muhammed International Airport walked past a condolence registry and two lit white candles at the Dana Air check-in counter. Hathiramani said Dana Air continued to call on relatives of those killed in the crash to come forward and identify themselves so bodies can be claimed and insurance payments be routed to families. He acknowledged the public anger the company now faces and said the company wanted both its officials and the public to know the cause of the crash before it begins flights again. “They have every reason to know what happened,” he said. “We’re just as just as equally committed to finding out the true cause of what happened here.”

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An art exhibit displaying works deemed blasphemous by hardline Muslims set off two days of clashes around the country Monday and Tuesday. The conservative Hizb ut-Tahrir group and the Ansar al-Sharia organization, led by a former Tunisian fighter in Afghanistan, both called for new protests Friday against insults to the religion. The moderate Islamic Ennahda Party, which controls the government, then called for a protest of its own. Since the fall of Tunisia’s secular dictatorship last year, there has been a rise in ultraconservative Islamist groups.

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Clashes between secular groups and religious hardliners have been on the rise in recent months, but this week’s violence is unprecedented and comes just two days after the terror group al-Qaida urged Tunisians to rise up against the governing moderate Islamist party Ennahda. In the coastal town of Sousse, 22-year-old Fehmi Aouini, a university student, died of his wounds Wednesday after being shot in the head during clashes between security forces and Salafists, the Farhat Hached hospital said. The North African nation that held its first free election last year is bracing for renewed unrest on Friday, the Muslim holy day, when conservative religious groups have called for renewed demonstrations against insults to the faith.

A joint statement Wednesday by the president, prime minister and head of parliament condemned unidentified “extremist groups” for “threatening the freedoms of Tunisia” and noted that these riots were taking place just as the country was getting back on its feet and the economy improving. Tunisia for half a century was ruled by a secular dictatorship that fiercely repressed any Islamist sentiment. Since the overthrow of the regime in January 2011, religious groups have sprouted up. Ennahda won an historic election last fall and allied itself with two secular parties, but hardline groups, including al-Qaida, say the government is not doing enough to implement Islamic law. The leader of Ennahda, Rachid Ghannouchi, said in an interview that Ayman al-Zawahri, the leader of al-Qaida who recently condemned Tunisia, was “a catastrophe for Islam and Muslims.” “We are against extremism regardless of the ideology, whether secular or Salafi, and the law must be applied to all those who violate it,” he said. Tunis, the capital, was calm on Wednesday after days of violence swept across the country. On Tuesday in Sousse, a mob attacked the local palace of fine arts and attempted to set it on fire with firebombs. In some areas young men took up weapons to protect their neighborhoods from religious extremists, according to the state news agency. Late Sunday, hundreds of extremists destroyed artworks at an exhibit in the Tunis suburb of La Marsa that included paintings that caricatured Mecca, portrayed a nude woman and showed the word “Allah” spelled with strings of ants.

Monastir on the coast, as well as Ben Guerdane on the Libyan border also witnessed similar violent protests. The art gallery in Tunis has since been closed by the government. Minister of Culture Mehdi Mabrouk said while the government supports the freedom of expression, it is opposed to any insults to religion. Interior Minister Ali Larayedh accused “extremists from the right and left” of being behind the violence. He also said remnants of the old regime and bands of criminals could also be involved and warned that “no one was above the law.” The government, many of whose members were once imprisoned by the old regime, had taken a cautious approach to the Salafist protests but appears to be taking a firmer line after this week’s riots.

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While officials continue to investigate the cause of that Dana Air crash in Lagos, other airlines continue to fly in Nigeria with older planes and far more questionable financing. And despite the fact that Nigeria now has the top U.S. aviation rating, passengers remain hesitant about flying in the wake of the crash. Harold Demuren, the director-general of Nigeria’s Civil Aviation Authority, said Wednesday that Air Nigeria would be able to resume operations after investigators concluded a series of safety checks on the airline’s planes. He said the checks were necessary after engineers attached to the private air carrier had been on strike and had not attended to the company’s fleet of 11 aircraft, mostly Boeing 737s.

Demuren said those checks could be finished within a day. At a news conference, Air Nigeria chairman Jimoh Ibrahim denied that his airline had been grounded, waving around a photocopied letter he said came from the aviation authority on Tuesday allowing the carrier to operate. He did not explain why Demuren said his airline had been grounded. “We are not grounded by anybody, but we decided not to fly today because we just felt that we should reorganize and create particular awareness because we’re coming out of (a) strike,” Ibrahim said. He said flights should resume Thursday. Yet financial troubles have trailed Air Nigeria, a one-time darling of the country when billionaire Richard Branson helped create it as Virgin Nigeria in 2005. Branson pulled out of the airline and in 2010, Ibrahim took it over and renamed it.

Ibrahim, who also directs a major hotel chain, an insurance firm and an oil company, has strong ties to the country’s political elite, as do many in business in the nation. But the engineers’ strike saw workers claiming the company’s finances stopped it from properly servicing its fleet and a top former company official also recently referred to airline’s aircraft as “flying coffins” in local media reports. Ibrahim told reporters on Wednesday that the airline wants to expand aggressively internationally, purchase more long-range aircraft and hopes to fly to Rome and Paris in the future. The airline made a major announcement in May in a leading national newspaper, saying it would buy four Boeing 787 Dreamliner airplanes for $887 million through a loan with the U.S. Export-Import Bank. However, officials at both Boeing and the bank later told The Associated Press there was no deal.

Ibrahim himself shied away when asked Wednesday about the alleged purchases, saying the airline continued to look at Airbus and Boeing aircraft for its expansion plans. Investigators, meanwhile, were still trying to figure out why an MD-83 operated by Dana Air crashed into a Lagos neighborhood on June 3 while flying from the Nigerian capital of Abuja. Its pilots radioed in just before the crash to say both engines had failed. Aviation authorities have halted Dana Air flights for the time being. Since the crash, civil aviation authorities in Nigeria have come under increasing political and public pressure in a nation with a long history of major aviation disasters.

Halting flights and rechecking aircraft could calm nerves but the civil aviation authority still remains understaffed and underequipped. Meanwhile, Ibrahim insisted that his airline met international requirements to fly to London and said he welcomed the scrutiny of the public. “We’ve never had any crash and we will never crash,” Ibrahim said.

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The investigation comes after engineers at the airline carried out an on-and-off strike at the carrier.

A spokesman for the airline could not be immediately reached, though an operator at its call center said the airline hoped to resume flights Thursday. The temporary grounding of Air Nigeria comes after a Dana Air flight June 3 crashed in Lagos, killing all 153 people on board and others on the ground. A cause for that crash has yet to be determined.

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However, some fear that Islamists may want the document to inject more religion in government and restrict liberties. The joint session of parliament’s two chambers, which are dominated by Islamists, was called by military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi after negotiations between political factions to agree on the makeup of the panel reached a deadlock. A court ruling disbanded a previous panel that was packed with Islamists. Liberal lawmakers say the Islamists were again seeking to dominate the new panel, and have filed a court case to declare the body illegal. The voting for the panel members went ahead without the estimated 60 lawmakers who walked out. Votes were being counted late Tuesday. The joint session included more than 600 lawmakers. The powers of Egypt’s key state institutions have been the subject of intense dispute since the military council suspended the old constitution and took power when Mubarak stepped down in February 2011. “It’s Egypt’s constitution we are talking about here,” said Ahmed Said, leader of the secularist Free Egyptians party. “The math of majority and minority should not apply.” Other non-Islamist lawmakers complained that the parliament hurriedly adopted legislation late Monday night to govern the selection and work of the panel. They saw the move as an attempt by the Islamists to head off a possible court ruling disbanding the new panel.

“I see that what has been done carries a hint of unconstitutionality,” said independent lawmaker Youssef el-Badry. “We have pulled out rather than take part in an illegal process.” Muslim Brotherhood lawmakers say they are abiding by an agreement reached with non-Islamist groups that they equally share the 100 seats. Liberals counter that the Brotherhood and other Islamists are giving their lawmakers more seats than agreed and devising a selection process that would give their supporters some of the seats assigned to other groups. The liberals insist that the drafting of the constitution should not be influenced by the Islamist parties dominating parliament. The Brotherhood and other Islamist parties won more than 70 percent of the seats in the elections held over three months starting in November. The result of the first round of the presidential election held last month saw non-Islamists in a field of 13 candidates win more than half the votes. However, because they split their votes among several of the 13, none of them made the two-person runoff. That will pit Brotherhood figure Mohammed Morsi against Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister June 16-17 ? leaving the young, mostly secular Egyptians who drove the uprising last year with no representative. Liberals, secularists, women and minority Christians say the Islamists want to dominate the process of writing a new constitution to give it an Islamist slant. The move, they claim, is part of a grand design by the Brotherhood and its allies to take over the main state institutions, including the executive and the legislature. “It is a constitutional panel in which Egyptians don’t see themselves represented,” top reform campaigner and Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei wrote on his Twitter account on Tuesday. “It is the end of a transitional period in which they are trying to bury the revolution and impound the future.”

The delay in drafting a new constitution is one of several legal disputes that have plagued the transitional period, any one of which could throw the process into disarray. On Thursday, Egypt’s highest court, the Supreme Constitutional Court, rules on whether legislation banning Mubarak regime figures from running for office is constitutional. If it is approved, Shafiq would be booted out of the race, the runoff vote would be canceled and the first round of voting would be repeated. The court could also uphold a lower court ruling that the law governing parliamentary elections was unconstitutional. That decision could lead to the dissolution of the parliament or a partial repeat of the election.

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The AP writes that the narrator in the ad says:  ”From the beginning, he knows why he is here and sets up his goal. He won’t have to spend much time getting to know the people in the place.”

The foreigner then sits down with the young Egyptians saying in broken Arabic: “I love you so much.” The foreigner strikes up a conversation with the three youngsters but the narrator warns against sharing with foreigners their worries over the state of Egypt’s economy.

• YouTube

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The wife and the two daughters-in-law of Egypt’s former president paid him a visit on Sunday after news emerged that he had died.

Mubarak was admitted to the Torah prison after a judge convicted him on June 2 of failing to stop the killings of protesters during last year uprising which forced him out of power.

The official says Mubarak lives only on liquids and yogurt. The official, who is in the prison, spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Mubarak’s health is reported to have collapsed since his June 2 conviction for failing to stop the killing of protesters during the uprising that overthrew him in 2011. His life sentence saw him transferred immediately to a prison hospital, instead of the military hospital and other facilities where he had been held since his April 2011 arrest.

Authorities have turned down several requests by Mubarak’s family to transfer the ousted president back to a military facility, the official said.

On Saturday Mubarak’s wife was denied access to the Intensive Care Unit where he was placed, as authorities limit family visitations to one a month.

According to security officials quoted by al-Masry al-Youm daily, Mrs. Mubarak lashed out at wardens for not giving her husband permission to seek treatment outside the prison. “You will be responsible for his death,” she allegedly said.

Mubarak’s two sons Alaa and Gamal are also being held. They were acquitted on June 2 of corruption charges, but still face separate charges of insider trading.

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George Saitoti who once served as Kenya’s vice president, was an American-trained economist and mathematician who last year announced he would seek the Kenyan presidency in 2013.

An Associated Press reporter saw the victims’ charred remains that were scattered in a forest near Nairobi.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga said at the scene of the accident that the death of Saitoti was a “great tragedy that has befallen our country at this time as we are making elaborate preparations to hold peaceful elections.”

It was not immediately clear what caused the accident. Kenyan police cordoned off the scene of the crash and said they were investigating.

Saitoti, an American-trained economist and mathematician, was one of the most visible figures in Kenyan politics. For over a decade he was a deputy to former President Daniel arap Moi.

As security minister he was the government’s spokesman on security matters including Kenya’s decision to send troops to Somalia last year. Analysts say he played a key role in that decision. Saitoti appeared often on national television to reassure the public in the aftermath of deadly attacks blamed on the Somali militant group al-Shabab.

Saitoti announced last year that he would seek the Kenyan presidency in 2013.

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Saad El-Katatni, who is also a member of parliament’s most powerful party, the Muslim Brotherhood tried to reassure liberals who walked out during the first attempt at creating the panel.

The Islamist-dominated parliament had initially heavily packed the panel with Brotherhood members and ultraconservative lawmakers.

But a breakthrough came this week when the country’s ruling military generals and 22 political parties agreed that Islamists will only take half of the panel’s seats and that the rest would go to legal experts and representatives of unions, ministries and the Coptic Church.

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The seven peacekeepers were from Niger. The U.N has had a peacekeeping mission in the Ivory Coast since 2004

At the end of April, the U.N. said there were about 9,400 peacekeeping troops, 200 military observers and 1,350 international police in the mission along with civilian staff. Over 40 countries are contributing military personnel.

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The United Nations has had a peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast since 2004. At the end of April, the U.N. said there were about 9,400 peacekeeping troops, 200 military observers and 1,350 international police in the mission along with civilian staff. Over 40 countries are contributing military personnel.

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It said casualties had been taken to two hospitals. One hospital official said six bodies were brought to the hospital where he works and that 16 people were hospitalized with injuries from the attack. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to speak to press. The blast occurred Friday around noon in front of the headquarters’ gate after officers prevented the bomber from entering the compound, said Borno State police chief Bala Hassan. Hassan said that only one policeman and two civilians were killed and six civilians were injured. However, officials have downplayed casualty figures in the past. Hours earlier, a suspected bomber died when an explosive went off prematurely in another part of the city, said military spokesman Col. Victor Ebhaleme. A radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram has carried out similar attacks in Maiduguri where residents live in constant fear of the next blast or drive-shooting.

The U.S. Embassy issued a warning late Thursday saying its citizens should not to travel to Maiduguri as diplomats believe “the situation will continue to deteriorate.” Nigeria faces a growing wave of sectarian violence carried out by the sect whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the Hausa language of Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north. Boko Haram has been blamed for killing more than 560 people this year alone, according to an Associated Press count. The sect’s targets have included churches, police stations and other security buildings, often attacked by suicide car bombers across northern Nigeria. Maiduguri’s police headquarters had been targeted before. Last August, police shot dead a 25-year-old man who attempted to drive a sedan loaded with seven gas cylinders, cans of gasoline and gunpowder into the building. There were no casualties besides the suspected bomber.

Boko Haram, which speaks to journalists through telephone conference calls at times of its choosing, could not be immediately reached for comment Friday afternoon. The sect most recently claimed responsibility for the drive-by killing Tuesday of a retired deputy inspector-general of police and two other officers in Nigeria’s largest northern city of Kano. Many of the sect’s casualties have been policemen and soldiers who have responded tit-for-tat, putting residents at further risk. Nigeria’s military says at least 16 people were killed Tuesday following an hours-long gunfight in Maiduguri, the sect’s spiritual home.

Authorities told journalists that all those killed were “Boko Haram terrorists.” However, a man who lives in the neighborhood said civilians had been hit by stray bullets. The man requested anonymity out of fear of angering the sect or authorities. Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people, is divided between a largely Muslim north and Christian south. Boko Haram attacks have inflamed tensions between the two religions, though many in the faiths live peacefully with each other and intermarry in Africa’s most populous nation.

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The deposed leader’s health scare on Wednesday added to the uncertainty engulfing Egypt, where powerful political groups are seeking to bar Mubarak’s former prime minister from the presidential runoff and derail the election.

Officials at Cairo’s Torah prison said the 84-year-old Mubarak’s condition had moved to a “dangerous” phase and that doctors administered oxygen five times to help him breathe. He was also suffering from shock, high blood pressure and severe depression, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Mubarak was being treated in the prison hospital’s intensive care unit, which recently underwent a $1 million renovation to prepare for his arrival, the officials said. He was the only patient in the five-bed ICU ward.

Dr. Hamdi el-Sayyed, who has treated Mubarak over the last decade, said imprisonment in Torah was “inhumane” given his age and poor health. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the gravity of Mubarak’s condition.

But the ex-leader’s health has been an issue in recent years. He was treated in 2010 for cancer of the gallbladder and pancreas, and his lawyer said after his arrest in April 2011 that it might have spread to his stomach. Officials denied the claim at the time.

Still, the ousted leader was ordered held in a military hospital after a government-appointed panel of physicians determined in May 2011 that he was too ill to be held in prison while awaiting trial, saying he suffered from heart trouble and had tumors in his pancreas removed. It did not say whether the tumors were malignant.

Mubarak did not want to go to Torah prison after he was sentenced on Saturday, pleading with his escort to take him back to the military hospital east of Cairo where he had stayed in a suite since his trial began in August. Before that, he was held in a hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Mubarak and his ex-security chief received life sentences for failing to stop the killing of protesters during last year’s uprising, but he and his two sons, one-time heir apparent Gamal and wealthy businessman Alaa, were acquitted of corruption charges. The sons are also being held in Torah, awaiting a separate trial on charges of insider trading.

Mubarak’s authoritarian regime was widely unpopular by the time of his overthrow, but conditions in Egypt have gone from bad to worse, with a wave of deadly protests, a battered economy and seemingly endless strikes.

Displeasure over the deteriorating conditions could be seen in the second-place finish by Mubarak’s former prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, in the first round vote last month, ahead of more liberal candidates. Shafiq is to face the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi in a runoff June 16-17.

However, in a new political twist, Egypt’s highest court said Wednesday that on June 14, two days before the vote, it would take up legal challenges to the legitimacy of both the presidential and recent parliamentary elections. Among other things, it will rule on the consitutionality of a now-suspended “isolation law” that would disqualify top officials of the Mubarak regime from the presidency.

If upheld, Shafiq could be barred from running, possibly forcing the cancellation of the runoff and a repeat of the first-round vote, something that is sure to plunge the nation into more turmoil.

Supreme Constitutional Court spokesman Maher Sami told The Associated Press he could not say whether a ruling would be reached on June 14, but added: “The court is responsive to public issues and that is why it is rapidly working to settle the case.”

Nullifying the election is likely to receive a mixed response, with those who see Shafiq as an extension of the old regime celebrating his disqualification. Morsi’s critics would also embrace such a ruling as a way to spare them an Islamist becoming president, a prospect that has alarmed liberals, leftists and minority Christians.

Combined, Shafiq and Morsi won about 50 percent of the vote, while liberal candidates more in tune with the revolution won 40 percent. A new election would be an attractive prospect for supporters of leftist Hamdeen Sabahi and moderate Islamist Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, who finished third and fourth respectively.

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“No airline crew would go on a suicide mission.” Emergency officials on Wednesday stopped searching for those killed at the crash site in Iju-Ishaga, the Lagos neighborhood about nine kilometers (five miles) from Lagos’ Murtala Muhammed International Airport. Searchers there recovered 153 complete corpses as well as fragmented remains before halting their efforts, said Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency. It is unclear from the fragments collected how many victims there are, officials said, acknowledging that a complete death toll could likely take weeks. “I think we can only be sure of the number at the end of the scientific investigation that is going on,” Lagos state attorney general Ade Ipaye said. Officials now plan to survey the neighborhood to find who remains missing after the plane smashed into two apartment buildings, a printing business and a woodshop, Shuaib said. Those still missing would be presumed dead until DNA testing or other forensic tests links them to the dead, officials said.

During a news conference Wednesday, authorities said relatives of the dead should come to Lagos to provide tissue samples and be photographed. However, such DNA testing likely would need to be done outside of Nigeria, a nation with erratic electricity from a state-run power company and a largely mismanaged government. The cause of the crash on a sunny, clear Sunday afternoon remains unknown. The flight’s captain radioed Lagos as the aircraft approached and declared an emergency, saying both of the MD-83′s engines had failed, Aviation Minister Stella Oduah said Wednesday. The plane crashed minutes later. Ogboro and others declined to speculate what could have made both of the aircraft’s Pratt and Whitney engines go out in the last minutes of the flight. The aircraft, manufactured by McDonnell-Douglas which was later bought by Boeing, requires a flight engineer to manage the fuel supply while in operation rather than having a computer monitoring it like on newer aircraft.

Authorities already have collected the flight voice and data recorders from the airplane and plan to send them to the U.S. for analysis on Thursday, Oduah said. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board also has sent an investigator to assist Nigeria’s Accident Investigation Board, which probes airplane crashes. Families and diplomats continued to attempt to identify the dead, hampered by conflicting flight manifests. On Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the number of dead American citizens in the crash had risen to nine from seven. Britain’s foreign ministry said that Antonia Attuh, a woman with dual Nigerian and British citizenship, died in the crash.

Indian diplomats also believe Indian national Rijo K. Eldhose and flight co-pilot Mahendra Singh Rathore, an American of Indian origin, also were killed, said Rani Malik, an officer at India’s High Commission in Lagos. Others killed in the crash included at least seven Americans, at least four Chinese citizens, two Lebanese nationals, a French citizen and a Canadian, officials have said. Popular anger has risen in Nigeria against the airline since the crash. On Tuesday, the Nigerian government said it indefinitely suspended Dana Air’s license to fly as a safety precaution. However, while offering sympathy for those who died in the crash, Ogboro predicted the airline would resume operations within a few weeks after proving to the government its fleet of MD-83s are safe. “We ensure that we go by the rules,” he said.

“I am almost certain they will find that we have not done anything contravening the aviation rules, because all of those aircraft are well maintained. There’s absolutely no doubt about that.” Yet identifying the dead likely will take longer, officials say, while the remaining building and rubble at the crash site have been leveled. At the site Wednesday, a worker in a yellow safety vest flipped through a photo album pulled from the debris, a series of photographs of weddings and christenings smeared with mud.

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Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, said searchers have recovered 153 complete corpses from the crash and body parts from other victims.

Shuaib said Wednesday that officials now are taking a survey to determine how many people were near the site of the crash when the plane went down.

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Lawmaker Mustafa Bakri on Tuesday outlined the ultimatum after representatives of 18 parties and independent lawmakers met with the head of the council, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.

The process has been deadlocked since the Islamist-dominated parliament tried to stack the body with its own people, leading to a walkout by secular and liberal members and the disbanding of the panel by a court order.

The dispute mirrors the splits in Egypt, two weeks before a presidential election runoff between a Muslim Brotherhood member and the last prime minister to serve the ousted President Hosni Mubarak, the two most polarizing candidates.

It also highlighted the contentious role of the ruling military in post-Mubarak Egypt. The military rulers have drawn stiff criticism for their handling of the transition.

They pledged to turn power back to a civilian government once a new president is in place, but there are some hints that they might try to hold back at the last moment if the outcome of the election is not in their favor, possibly using lack of a new constitution as a reason.

Several parties boycotted the Tuesday meeting, including the Brotherhood, the country’s most influential political group. Saad el-Katatni of the Brotherhood, who is the speaker of the parliament, lashed out at the military council. “No one can strip the parliament of its authority to issue legislation or laws,” he said.

Bakri said that if parties failed to name an assembly, the military council will issue “a supplementary constitutional declaration” to lay the blueprints for the panel.

Yasser Ali, a spokesman for Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi, said if the military council went ahead with its declaration, “it will be hijacking legislative authority from parliament.”

“We won’t recognize whatever comes from the military council. This is our position,” he said.

The conflict over the constitutional panel adds tension to an already charged political scene, coming three days after Mubarak was given a life sentence for failing to stop the killing of protesters during last year’s uprising. Many uprising stalwarts demanded a death sentence.

Since the sentencing Saturday, angry Egyptians have swept into the streets, demanding justice and denouncing the whole election process.

On Tuesday, tens of thousands of protesters converged from several mosques around Cairo on Tahrir Square, the focal point of the uprising. A long banner read: “In the name of the martyrs’ blood, there will be a new revolution.”

Protesters demanded enforcement of “isolation law” that prevents Mubarak-era officials from contesting elections.

The law, passed by parliament but still awaiting a ruling by Egypt’s Constitutional Court, might lead to a cancellation of the election. Others demanded formation of “civilian presidential council” to take over from the military.

Morsi is labeling himself as “the candidate of the revolution” and is trying to rally voters from among revolutionary and liberal groups to confront his rival candidate, Ahmed Shafiq, as Morsi tried to capitalize on the fear by many Egyptians that Shafiq would recreate Mubarak’s repressive regime.

However, the Brotherhood has been also postponing talks over formation of the constitutional panel, hoping to finalize it only after presidential elections.

Analysts believe if an Islamist is elected, the Brotherhood will not press to change Egypt’s political system from presidential to parliamentary, a change that would give the Islamist-led parliament greater powers. If its candidate is defeated, then the Brotherhood would push to change the system to favor the parliament.

Many liberals blame the ruling council for not initially setting out clear standards for the panel in the country’s interim constitution, passed last year after the military council froze the old constitution.

“This is the trap the ruling council has put us in. Now it has to correct its mistakes,” said Ahmed Khairi, spokesman of Free Egyptians party.

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The heavy rains began Tuesday morning before dawn, flooding roads and bringing down power lines and trees in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city.

Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, said the rains had stopped searchers from returning to the crash site near Lagos’ Murtala Muhammed International Airport.

Shuaib said rescuers also were worried a three-story apartment building struck by the MD-83 aircraft might collapse.

The plane crashed Sunday, killing all 153 people onboard. Rescuers worry more people likely were killed on the ground.

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The NMLA is led by Tuareg separatists, including some who fought in the army of ex-Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. After the fall of Tripoli, they regrouped in northern Mali, one of the traditional homelands of the Tuareg people, and launched a new rebellion, saying they wanted to carve out an independent homeland for the Tuareg nation, called Azawad. They had seized only minor towns for the first three months of their uprising, but on March 21, a coup in Mali overturned its democratically elected government. The rebels took advantage of the power vacuum to push forward, seizing the northern half of the nation, a territory larger than France, in a matter of weeks. They were helped by an Islamic faction, called Ansar Dine, which recently signed an agreement agreeing to merge with the NMLA. However, their relationship has been rocky and there were reports that the merger was off after disagreements over what kind of Islamic law will be imposed on the normally tolerant and moderate soil of northern Mali.

The statement, signed by the NMLA’s Secretary-General Bilal Ag Acharif, comes after two days of closed-door meetings between the NMLA’s commanders and Iyad Ag Ghali, the shadowy leader of Ansar Dine, who has made clear that he wants to impose Islamic law. Ag Ghali is known to have ties to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, the al-Qaida cell active in North and West Africa. The statement said that the agreement signed between the two groups on May 26 “is being studied by the two parties and a commission is going to be appointed in order to treat the points of divergence.” Acharif also denied that the NMLA has any ties to the al-Qaida group. “(We express) our shock and our condemnation of certain declarations in the media and press articles that try to make an amalgam between those fighting for Azawad and al-Qaida.” He said neighboring countries should be reassured that the NMLA has no intention of destabilizing them. There have been increasing reports that northern Mali has become a magnet for terrorists.

Last month, a leader of AQIM issued an audiotape praising the Islamic fighters who seized control of the north of Mali, and giving then point-by-point instructions on how to impose Islamic law without alienating the people. The president of Benin, Yayi Boni, who is the rotating chairperson of the African Union, recently told French radio RFI that he feared that if left alone, the rebels would build “an African Afghanistan.”

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The debris still smoldered Monday morning. Some wore masks to try and protect themselves from the stench of the dead. Rescue workers used the crane from the construction site to lift the tail of the aircraft. The metal shrieked as it lifted skyward and was dropped down. Investigators then climbed ladders to begin to look at its tail. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan arrived Monday to the crash site and spent about 20 minutes looking at the wreckage with federal lawmakers. He said the crash was a setback to Nigeria’s Aviation Ministry. “We will make sure this will not repeat itself in this country,” he said. However, that is a difficult challenge in a nation with a history of major passenger plane crashes in the last 20 years. The cause of the crash remained unclear. The pilots radioed to the Lagos control tower just before the crash, reporting engine trouble, a military official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists. In a statement on its website, Dana Air said an investigation into the cause of the crash was already underway with U.S. officials assisting the Nigerian government. The company said the plane crashed with 146 passengers onboard, along with a flight engineer, two pilots and four cabin crew members. “We extend our deepest sympathies to the families and friends of the deceased, and we are doing everything we can to assist them in this extremely difficult time,” the statement signed by Dana Air CEO Jacky Hathiramani read, Rescue workers are still searching for the aircraft’s black box recorders where flight data is stored, said Harold Demuren, the director-general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority. Demuren said the Nigerian registration number of the plane was 5NRAM. Aviation databases show the plane was exported to Nigeria in early 2009. It was first delivered in 1990 with the U.S. registration number N944AS to Alaska Airlines and it suffered two minor incidents while in the Seattle-based airline’s service, according to databases of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Aviation Safety Network.

On Nov. 2, 2002, the plane made an emergency diversion due to smoke and electrical smell in the cabin, and on Aug. 20, 2006, the plane was evacuated after landing at Long Beach, California because of smoke in the passenger cabin. Boeing said in a statement on its website that the company is ready to provide technical assistance to the Civil Aviation Authority on Nigeria through the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. Bobbie Egan, spokeswoman for Alaska Airlines, said she had no information on the aircraft that may have been used several years ago by the airline and referred calls to Alaska’s corporate communications office, which was not yet open. On April 19, 2010, the plane made an emergency landing in Lagos due to loss of engine power after a bird strike following takeoff, according to the Aviation Safety Network. The aircraft appeared to have come down Sunday on its belly onto the dense neighborhood that sits along the typical approach path taken by aircraft heading into Lagos’ Murtala Muhammed International Airport. The plane tore through roofs, sheared a mango tree and rammed into a woodworking studio, a printing press and at least two apartment buildings before stopping. The plane was heading to Lagos from Abuja, the capital, when it went down.

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Officials with the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority and the Nigeria Emergency Management Agency said Monday they don’t know how many people on the ground were injured or killed when the Dana Air flight crashed Sunday in a densely populated neighborhood near Lagos’ international airport.

Rescuers worked through Sunday night at the site, trying to put out fires from the crash. Officials said searchers were still looking for the aircraft’s black box recorder.

Sunday’s crash was the worst air disaster in the troubled nation in nearly two decades.

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